The Arizona Cardinals flew to London with lots of momentum for a potential offensive and team turn around, now they'll fly back facing a grim future. After Sunday's shutout loss to the Los Angeles Rams, head coach Bruce Arians announced quarterback Carson Palmer would miss the next eight weeks with a broken left arm.
Palmer suffered the injury midway through the game on Sunday and Drew Stanton immediately took his place. In the absence of Palmer, Arizona's offense came to a crashing stop. At quarterback, Stanton completed just 5-of-14 pass attempts for 62 yards, one interception and two sacks. Arizona's running game also suffered. Adrian Peterson collected just 21 rushing yards on 11 carries, an ugly 1.9 yards per carry on the day.
With Stanton's struggles came ugly lines from Arizona's wide receivers. The team's leading receiver on the day, Jaron Brown, finished with 37 receiving yards and Larry Fitzgerald finished third on the team with 29 receiving yards.
This could very easily be the end for Palmer this season and potentially his career. But for now the focus is on Arizona and for fantasy owners, the injury is also crushing. Peterson regressed in a major way this week and now will faced stacked boxes behind an average offensive line with a passing game that may not be able to take much pressure off him. Meanwhile, Fitzgerald's fantasy stock takes a hit and may fall into the WR2 radar with tough matchups coming in the second half.