Carson Palmer's transition to the Raiders has been greatly eased by the strength of the team's running game. "It’s been my best friend so far," said Palmer. "Anytime you can run the ball and have teams that come in scared of the run game it helps out the passing game tremendously and gets in third and shorter situations. Anytime you’re in third-and-10 plus it makes it difficult and we’ve avoided a lot of those situations because we’ve run the ball well on first and second down and it’s been great." Palmer knew the Raiders had a running game before he arrived. "Yeah, I’ve known about Michael Bush for a long time. I’ve known about McFadden for a while but I didn’t know how well this offensive line and the fullback play, I didn’t know how good those guys were until I was here and witnessed it first hand I didn’t realize they were that dominant up front and that powerful upfront. It’s been a pleasant surprise."