The timing of the Oakland Raiders' bye week couldn't be more valuable for Carson Palmer.
Palmer took the field Tuesday for his first practice since his three-interception debut as the Raiders' quarterback. He had just three practices with the team and took about 20 percent of the first-team snaps during the week before replacing Kyle Boller during the third quarter of Sunday's 28-0 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.
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So Palmer's task this week will be to learn the offense, build a rapport on and off the field with his receivers and get back into football shape after more than nine months away from the game.
"This bye week may be the most valuable to me of anybody in the league, other than a guy who is really hurt or nursing a serious injury," Palmer said.
That's because Palmer arrived in Oakland just a week ago after spending training camp and the first six weeks of the season in retirement at home in Southern California. That ended when Jason Campbell broke his collarbone and the Raiders traded a 2012 first-round pick and a 2013 conditional second-rounder to the Cincinnati Bengals for Palmer.
Palmer finished 8-of-21 passing for 116 yards against the Chiefs and threw three interceptions, including one that Brandon Flowers returned for a touchdown. Palmer completed his first pass in more than nine months, but there wasn't much else positive in his performance.
"It was kind of like a preseason game just to get my feet wet, call a play in the huddle, throw a ball in live action and make errors and make mistakes," he said. "It's much easier to learn from a mistake or an error than it is to learn from doing it right. ... It's always a negative thing to lose and lose the way we did. But I think there's a lot more good than people outside this building would recognize that we'll learn from and improve on and move on from."
The to-do list for Palmer is extensive, starting with learning protections and terminology, calling plays in the huddle, working on snap counts, reading defenses, changing plays and getting a feel for the skill-position players.
When all of that is done, Palmer can start preparing for the next game, Nov. 6 against the Denver Broncos, which the Raiders hope will be a much more successful day than his debut was.
"I put him in a very tough situation, but it was a situation he was willing to go in and compete in," Raiders coach Hue Jackson said. "I understood what the situation was. I knew that those things could happen. I knew it could go really well. I knew it could go really bad, and obviously it went the latter. We don't want that to happen again. That's why we're out here practicing like we're practicing. We're going to get ourselves ready to play big-time football the way we know how to play."
While the Raiders must take an NFL-mandated four days off during their bye week, Palmer and the skill-position players are planning to stay in town all weekend to make up for all that lost time.
Notes: The Raiders waived kicker Dave Rayner, who had one kickoff in his only game in place of injured Sebastian Janikowski. ... FB Marcel Reece was back for the first time since spraining an ankle Sept. 25 against the New York Jets. ... Jackson said backup OL Bruce Campbell is moving from guard to tackle.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
