Tampa Bay Buccaneers wanted to acquire quarterback Carson Palmer in offseason?

Although signal caller Carson Palmer is entrenched as the Arizona Cardinals starting quarterback, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers likely wanted to acquire the former USC Trojan this past offseason, at least, that’s the thought of Palmer.

Palmer, who was traded by the Raiders to the Cardinals in April, said the Buccaneers were consistently calling his agent prior to the trade.

Per NFL.com:

"In fact, Palmer revealed Wednesday that the team had his agent’s phone ringing off the hook before the April trade that sent him to Arizona.“My agent said that Tampa had been contacting him a lot,” Palmer said, via the Buccaneers‘ official website. “I would have been very excited to be there. Their organization has a lot of good players across the board, but like I said, I’m excited and happy to be where I am. I’m excited about our future.”"

The Bucs of course benched starting quarterback Josh Freeman earlier this week, though it’s clear they weren’t exactly content going into the season with him.

Also, slightly humorous that the original quote, which was picked up by NFL.com came from the Bucs’ team website – a very subtle suggestion they tried to improve their quarterback position.