TEMPE, Ariz. — Some of the last Raiders to taste even a modicum of success now are happily plying their trade in the desert with the first place and undefeated Arizona Cardinals.

As they prepare to play the 49ers on Sunday, Carson Palmer, Jared Veldheer and Matt Shaughnessy are far away from the disaster they believe began with the dismissal of Hue Jackson as coach.

“Guys loved playing for Hue,” Palmer said. “Hue was a great head coach. Unfortunately, they decided that it was time for him to go, and a number of our guys that had been there awhile. Any of our guys that were making above league minimum, it was time to cut them.”

The Cardinals went 10-6 last season and came within a win of making the playoffs. They are 2-0 this season.

The former Raiders said they felt as if the Raiders were building toward something special, too, before general manager Reggie McKenzie opted for a complete overhaul, what owner Mark Davis later termed a “deconstruction.”

Palmer and Shaughnessy said the decision to fire Jackson after he guided the Raiders to an 8-8 record in 2011 set back the franchise. The Raiders are 8-26 since Jackson exited, including an 0-2 mark this season.

“As soon as that season ended, everything changed,” Shaughnessy said of 2011.

Mark Davis, who replaced his father Al after he passed away in the middle of the 2011 season, hired McKenzie to run football operations. McKenzie, in turn, fired Jackson and hired Dennis Allen to be the coach.

“I felt like we were on the verge with Tom Cable as coach,” Shaughnessy said. “He put together two 8-8 seasons.”

Al Davis fired Cable and hired Jackson, Cable’s offensive coordinator. Jackson got the Raiders within a game of making the playoffs in his lone year as coach.

“As for Hue, he just needed another year,” Shaughnessy said. “Isn’t that the Raiders, though?”

McKenzie also took a ton of heat for trading away Palmer and letting Veldheer get away in free agency.

The Raiders traded Palmer to the Cardinals in 2013 for a swap of picks in the 2013 draft — the Raiders got a sixth-rounder in exchange for a seventh — and a seventh-rounder in 2014.

That’s a far cry from the first- and second-round picks the Raiders sent to the Cincinnati Bengals in a midseason trade for Palmer in 2011. In fairness, the Raiders had just lost starter Jason Campbell to a season-ending injury, and they had a realistic shot at making the playoffs for the first time since 2002.

When the Raiders moved him, Palmer was fresh from a season in which he passed for 4,018 yards and 22 touchdowns.

“It was just crazy,” Palmer said of the climate in Oakland during that period. “It was such a weird time. Nobody knew what was going on. Nobody knew who was going, who was staying.”

They soon found out, one by one, starting with Jackson. Palmer lasted one more season.

The Raiders’ search for a replacement for Palmer hasn’t yielded much fruit. Terrelle Pryor, Matt Flynn, Matt McGloin and Derek Carr have started the 18 games since Palmer departed.

Flynn, whom the Raiders acquired via trade, got released early last season after one start. Pryor got replaced by McGloin nine games into the 2013 season and then got traded to the Seahawks this past offseason.

McKenzie traded for veteran Matt Schaub in the offseason, only for second-round draft pick Carr to beat him out in training camp.

Veldheer survived one more season than Palmer before he, too, got caught up in McKenzie’s massive overhaul.

Veldheer, a third-round draft pick in 2010, expressed his desire to re-sign with the Raiders. McKenzie and Allen returned the love. Veldheer had no reason to think that he wouldn’t be a Raider for life.

“Yeah, I thought that every day that I was in California,” Veldheer said.

Until his mail started arriving in Arizona in mid March.

Veldheer was considered the top offensive tackle in free agency, yet McKenzie’s interest never got beyond words of affection, according to Veldheer.

“The whole time, the understanding was that something was going to happen, there was something that was going to be done,” Veldheer said. “But then nothing ended up happening. There wasn’t any back and forth that kind of let me know where I stood.”

In the meantime, the Raiders signed Rams’ free agent Rodger Saffold, but then nixed the deal after Saffold didn’t pass a physical. Saffold returned to St. Louis and has been a starter at guard.

The Cardinals pounced on Veldheer with a long-term contract that includes $17 million guaranteed. Before long, jettisoned Raiders defensive tackle Tommy Kelly signed with the Cardinals, too.

Today, the Cardinals are 2-0, the Raiders 0-2 and faced with the prospect of another head coaching change if things don’t turn around in a hurry.

Yet, none of the former Raiders take delight in seeing their former team mired in a prolonged morass.

“I loved being a Raider,” Palmer said. “There’s just something special about being a Raider that’s unlike anything else.

“It’s just unfortunate that it was terrible timing. There was so much going on, all the salary cap issues and issues from past contracts and all that. Unfortunately, it was just the wrong time to be there. It couldn’t have been a worse time. But I loved it.”

Follow Steve Corkran on Twitter at twitter.com/CorkOnTheNFL.