Bruce Arians claims Drew Stanton still on track to start over Carson Palmer

The San Francisco 49ers face the Arizona Cardinals this weekend, and head coach Bruce Arians informed Bay Area media that Drew Stanton is likely to start on Sunday. Arians spoke with the media via conference call and said the status had not changed as of Wednesday, and the team would still wait on Carson Palmer showing some improvement.

"It hasn't changed today, so we'll be status quo. Drew is the starter, Logan's the backup, and we'll still be waiting on Carson."

Stanton was solid enough for the Cardinals on Sunday against the New York Giants, although it was more about not making mistakes than anything else. They will keep it fairly safe in the passing game, and rely more on their run game and defense to keep them in the game.

All that being said, I think it is safe to take Arians with a little bit of a grain of salt. I am not expecting Palmer to play at this point, but I would not be surprised if Arians is sand-bagging a little bit with Palmer. I would have thought he might be a bit more ambiguous, but that might just be a matter of being so used to the Jim Harbaugh school of press conferences.