Pocket passers like Carson Palmer have dropped back into fashion in NFL

Three weeks into the NFL season and the statue quarterbacks are standing tall.

It wasn’t too long ago that the demise of drop-back passers was considered inevitable, and those double-threat, run-pass hybrids were the rage.

Washington’s Robert Griffin III was giving fits to opponents. San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick was tying defenses in knots. Tim Tebow was winning games in Denver. Coach Chip Kelly was outsmarting teams with some of the innovative concepts he used at Oregon.

“The media always likes new and different,” Hall of Fame Coach Bill Parcells said by phone Monday. “And I don’t blame them. That’s human nature.”

Here’s what’s new and different now: Dinosaurs are once again ruling the Earth.

Carson Palmer, athletic but not fleet-footed, is off to a spectacular start for the 3-0 Arizona Cardinals.

Andy Dalton, another pocket passer, has eight touchdowns and one interception for the 3-0 Cincinnati Bengals.

He might not move much, but New England’s Tom Brady is still immobilized atop the statistical standings. Peyton Manning is almost 40 and he’s still winning games for Denver.

And those running quarterbacks? Kaepernick is struggling mightily; two of his first four passes against Arizona on Sunday were intercepted and returned for touchdowns. Griffin is buried on the bench in Washington. Tebow is out of the league. Seattle’s Russell Wilson and Carolina’s Cam Newton are off to solid starts — Carolina is undefeated — but aren’t picking apart defenses.

Bill Polian, the Hall of Fame personnel man who helped turn Buffalo, Carolina and Indianapolis into winners, said many people were premature in dismissing pocket passers and thinking running quarterbacks would change the league as we know it.

“Everything in life these days seems to get magnified, and everybody leaps to conclusions,” he said. “The bottom line is, the guys who were dinosaurs are still chugging along. The guys who were going to revolutionize the game? We’re still waiting.

“There’s still room for the drop-back passer, and many of these running quarterbacks are going to develop into drop-back passers before too long. Because as we know, there are no old running quarterbacks in the NFL.”

Predictably, defenses have largely caught up to schemes such as the read-option and wildcat, and aren’t as susceptible to getting burned by them.

“Just like the run-and-shoot and a bunch of others,” Parcells said. “Defenses figure it out.”

That’s not to say there’s no room for quarterbacks who make plays with their wheels. Wilson, who has a quick mind to go with his quick feet, has been a big part of getting the Seahawks to the last two Super Bowls, and the team made a major investment in him this summer by signing him to a contract extension that pays him an average of more than $21 million per year. He’s not fading from sight.

Same goes for Tennessee rookie Marcus Mariota. He had a tremendous opener against Tampa Bay, relying on his post-snap decision making much the way he did in his Heisman Trophy days at Oregon. He was less effective in subsequent losses to Cleveland and Indianapolis.

So far this season, the most successful quarterbacks have been the old-school types such as Palmer, whose team has averaged a league-high 42 points per game. The 126 points scored by the Cardinals rank fourth in NFL history for a team’s first three games.

Palmer has been sacked once — fewer than any other quarterback in the league — and has won nine consecutive starts dating to last season. The last Cardinals quarterback to win that many in a row was Ray Mallouf, who won 10 in a row in 1948.

In light of that, the Cardinals got quite a deal when they acquired Palmer from Oakland in 2013. A former No. 1 overall pick, he was available in a market that didn’t put as much value in pocket passers. The Raiders sent Palmer and their seventh-round pick in the 2013 draft (219th overall) to Arizona for its sixth-round pick in 2013 (176th overall) and a conditional pick in 2014 that turned out to be Arizona’s seventh rounder (235th overall).

“More than anything, what we liked about him was his natural accuracy, his ability to throw the football with great anticipation and ball placement,” Cardinals General Manager Steve Keim said by phone Monday.

“The thing about that position is you talk about all these mobile quarterbacks. The trend for a while was to find a guy who could move. But the biggest thing is, regardless of what your foot speed and your athleticism is, your mind had better be able to work fast. You’d better be able to process information and make quick decisions.

“You see guys like [San Diego’s] Philip Rivers and Carson Palmer, guys who could probably barely run 5.4 [seconds in the 40-yard dash], but get the ball out quick, make quick decisions. Tom Brady’s in that category, Peyton Manning. These guys can’t run. But their mind works so fast. They make quick decisions, the right decisions, and they’re almost like having a coach on the field.”

Keim identified Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers and Indianapolis’ Andrew Luck as the best of both worlds.

“Those guys can move, they have great feet, they can make plays out of the pocket and they’re smart and accurate,” he said. “That’s the total package. But very rarely do you have that. So many guys are one or the other.”

In a 51-17 trouncing of Jacksonville on Sunday, Brady completed 78.6% of his passes for 358 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. He also joined Manning (533), Brett Favre (508), and Dan Marino (420) as the only players with 400 career touchdown passes.

Dalton threw three touchdown passes Sunday in a 28-24 victory at Baltimore and is at the top of his game.

Atlanta’s Matt Ryan, another quarterback far more reliant on his arm than his ability to run, led his team to a 39-28 come-from-behind victory over Dallas. The Falcons are the first team in NFL history to win their first three games despite trailing in the fourth quarter of each.

Of course, the bigger comeback is the once-discarded concept of a drop-back passer.

sam.farmer@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATimesfarmer