Ryan Lindley isn’t happening for the Seahawks this time against Arizona

Red-hot Carson Palmer is starting this time for Arizona.

That alone is why Sunday night’s NFC West showdown at CenturyLink Field should be infinitely more difficult for the Seahawks than the last two times they played the Cardinals.

“Well, they had … I don’t even know who they had at quarterback last time,” Seahawks All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner said this week, with a grin.

For the record, it was Ryan Lindley, a third-stringer who’s long gone from Arizona now. When, predictably, he began to falter in the game last December, fourth-string quarterback Logan Thomas relieved him. And also failed.

Seattle rolled the Cardinals, 35-6, to effectively seize another NFC West title from them.

Four weeks before that, last Nov. 23, Seattle welcomed Arizona’s No. 2 quarterback, Drew Stanton, into CenturyLink Field. And rudely. The Seahawks swarmed him in a 19-3 win that started their run to the division crown.

That was two weeks after Palmer’s 2014 season ended with a torn knee ligament. The Cardinals went from 8-1 and on the inside track to the NFC’s top playoff seed to a wild card that lost — with Lindley — at Carolina on the first weekend of the postseason.

That was then. This is an impressive now: Palmer, 35, is playing at levels worthy of being the comeback player of the league and maybe its most valuable player. And the Cardinals (6-2) have a two-game lead in the division over Seattle and St. Louis (both 4-4).

Lindley? He’s out of football after New England released him in early September.

Palmer is third in the NFL in passer rating behind Tom Brady and Andy Dalton at 110.2. He is completing 64.6 percent of his throws. His 20 touchdown passes are second only to Brady, and are opposite just six interceptions.

Palmer has thrown for at least 300 yards five times. That includes 374 yards, with four touchdowns, in his last game on Nov. 1. Arizona rallied for a 34-20 win at Cleveland after trailing 20-7.

Palmer threw for 421 yards in the Cardinals’ 25-13 loss at Pittsburgh. That day of rare red-zone malfunctioning is the only time this season that Arizona hasn’t scored at least 22 points.

As Wagner said of Palmer: “He’s going to try to pick us apart.”

Kris Richard played college football with Palmer. So the designer of Seattle’s defense, at 36 the youngest defensive coordinator in the league, must have some key insights into Arizona’s high-flying quarterback, right?

“No,” Richard said this week. “Same guy.”

Actually, Palmer is even better than he was when he and Richard were at USC more than a dozen years ago. Better than he’s ever been.

So says their coach at USC.

“I’ve always thought he’s about as perfect of a thrower as you can find,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said of Palmer. “He looks the best he’s ever been. I see him at his very best right now.”

Palmer appreciated that assessment from his old coach.

“Well, it feels good,” Palmer said on a conference call from Arizona. “You hope he says that on Monday morning, obviously.”

What’s made Palmer and the Cardinals’ offense better this season — second in the NFL at 32.9 points per game, third with 417 total yards on average — is that Arizona now has a lethal running game, too. Throwing wows folks. Balance usually wins titles.

Chris Johnson, the 30-year-old former 2,000-yard rusher with Tennessee, arrived during training camp in August as a free agent discarded by the Titans and New York Jets. All he’s done is rise to third in the league with 676 yards rushing. He has four 100-yard games in eight starts.

So Seattle linebackers Wagner, K.J. Wright and Bruce Irvin, ends Cliff Avril and Michael Bennett, plus the rest of the defense, have far more to worry about than just Palmer and his receivers: Larry Fitzgerald (55 catches, seven touchdowns) and John Brown (more than 15 yards per catch).

“He’s been unbelievable,” Palmer said of Johnson. “From the day he got here, it’s been really fun to watch. He is so smart and gets it. And picked up this offense as fast as anybody that’s come in here. … This is a very difficult offense. There are a ton of nuances to it. There are a ton of adjustments, presnap, postsnap, coverage-wise on the fly; there’s so much going on in this offense.

“But for a guy to come in off the street week two of training camp. … He knew the offense before the season started, and that says a lot about just how quickly he picks things up. He is so money on protections.”

And Palmer is “money” in the Cardinals’ passing game right now. Infinitely more money than Ryan Lindley or Logan Thomas or Drew Stanton were while going bankrupt against Seattle last season.

The Seahawks say that’s the only way they want it Sunday night.

“Oh, yeah, you like playing against the best,” Wright said. “You don’t want to play against the second-, third-team quarterback. That’s not really fun.

“So they’ve got their main guy out there. And it’s going to present a challenge for us.”

This story was originally published November 13, 2015 at 10:06 PM with the headline "Ryan Lindley isn’t happening for the Seahawks this time against Arizona."