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Warner hopes to rise from ashes in Phoenix By Jim Corbett, Sports Weekly
TEMPE, Ariz. — The desert sun is pushing 100 degrees by 9 o'clock on a pristine morning when Kurt Warner and some new Arizona Cardinals teammates hold a spirited quarterback challenge after an hour of working on pass routes. Warner, quarterbacks Josh McCown and John Navarre and receivers Anquan Boldin and Bryant Johnson morph from men at work to playful kids at a carnival test of skill.
In their white T-shirts and red shorts, they take turns trying to hit the side of a goal post upright with a football from the end zone sideline. It's a tough angle, but Warner flicks a bull's-eye off the far upright on his final attempt.
Is it an omen that Warner is up to winning a far greater quarterback challenge — resurrecting the Cardinals and his reputation?
The two-time league MVP and Super Bowl XXXIV MVP has come to the Valley of the Sun to burn off the shadow of doubt that has hovered over him since the 2003 beginning that was his end in St. Louis — a six-fumble, season-opening loss to the Giants. Warner played on despite suffering a first-quarter concussion, but coach Mike Martz passed the torch to Marc Bulger thereafter.
Can a deeply religious man become a born-again playoff quarterback, coalescing belief on a young, talented team hungry to win? Can Warner and the Cardinals be more surprise than desert mirage entering respected coach Dennis Green's second season?
"I'm here to start a revival now," Warner says. "I wanted to come here to re-establish myself and help this team do great things.
"There are a lot of people from different places that come out here to retire or for the climate who have never been Cardinals fans. They're just waiting for a winner. It's an awesome opportunity to establish ourselves. Once we do, the sky's the limit."
There are two risings taking place in the greater Phoenix area — Green's Cardinals and a state-of-the-art, $370 million stadium that resembles a giant silver spaceship with its shimmering panels built to reflect the shifting desert light. The landmark in the West Valley community of Glendale has a retractable grass field to match its retractable roof. It is on schedule to open for the 2006 NFL season.
The 2005 season is all about Green's team proving it is worthy of that football palace.
The Cardinals, 6-10 last year, have long been the other noted void in the Grand Canyon State. Compared to Arizona's natural wonder, they are the dry well that has yielded one winning season — 9-7 in 1998 — since arriving from St. Louis in 1988.
Green has turned around programs from Northwestern to the Minnesota Vikings, who reached the playoffs eight times in 10 seasons from 1992-2001. After a stint as an ESPN analyst, Green spent his second offseason with the Cardinals overhauling the roster and attitude. He signed Warner to a one-year, $4 million deal to deliver the ball to big-play receivers Boldin, Johnson and Larry Fitzgerald. Last year's starter, third-year man McCown, went 6-7 in 13 starts before Green benched him for Shaun King, then Navarre.
To complement a spread passing attack, Green drafted running back J.J. Arrington 44th overall. The former University of California runner with 4.4 speed was the only Division I-A back to rush for more than 2,000 yards last season. Green added playmakers to a playoff-caliber defense led by Pro Bowl defensive end Bertrand Berry, second-year defensive tackle Darnell Dockett and linebacker Karlos Dansby.
"I'm here to be successful," Green says. "That's why I came here with my wife, two kids and our two dogs.
"That's why this is a crucial year. We want to have a product that people will start coming out and recognizing that this is a team that you've got to see play. You've got to see J.J. Arrington run and Karlos Dansby and Darnell Dockett do their thing and chase people around the stadium.
"We feel we're going to be the next hot 'it.' We're committed to it."
Green summoned Dockett, a gifted tackle with tattoos and flowing dreadlocks, to his office last month. Ticketed for illegal parking as he did some extra lifting, Dockett feared a fine. Green sent a more important message.
"I went up to Coach's office, and he looked at me and said: 'I can't have another year like last year. Not only that, I can't let you have another year like that,' " Dockett says. "I said: 'Coach, I'm ready. I'm glad about everything you've done this offseason.'
"I expect us to go to the playoffs and not doing the wild-card thing."
One month shy of his 34th birthday, Warner's best football is behind him. That's not to say the man who threw 98 touchdowns in his first three seasons can't deliver the Cardinals to the playoffs. But he must be surrounded by better protection and weapons than he had in New York.
Warner is a rhythmic passer who was never allowed to get his groove back as an offensive caretaker behind the Giants' Mendoza line last season.
After leading the Giants to a 5-2 start, he started holding the ball too long and was sacked 13 times in his last two starts against Chicago and Arizona. Coach Tom Coughlin then turned to Eli Manning.
Warner finished with an 86.5 passer rating, throwing six touchdowns and four interceptions.
Green and offensive coordinator Keith Rowen studied tape of every throw Warner made last season. They are convinced Warner can get his mojo back. Much depends on a still-developing offensive line.
"We feel good about his ability to still throw the ball, and he has great anticipation, timing and innate toughness," Rowen says. "The term 'holding onto the ball' has come up. For what we do here, we believe he'll be a fit."
Rowen worked under Green in Minnesota and for Warner's former Rams coach Dick Vermeil in Kansas City last season. The plan is to re-create a passing game similar to Green's Vikings' version with Randy Moss, Cris Carter and Jake Reed.
Signing free agent right tackle Oliver Ross from Pittsburgh added a bookend pass protector opposite left tackle Leonard Davis.
"You'd like to believe if you have two tackles who can hold their own or better, you have the chance to be a pretty good line," Rowen says. "We can't hedge and say, 'We're young.' We have no excuses."
A former Iowa running back who drove a truck as a graduate assistant for the Hawkeyes, Green can relate to Warner, a former Iowa Barnstormer (in the Arena Football League) who rose from supermarket stock boy to Super Bowl MVP.
His first three seasons triggering "The Greatest Show on Turf" were so meteoric, it was as if Warner walked out of an Iowa cornfield and into legend. But the rise has been followed by an equally dramatic fall.
"Kurt's story was the most incredible story maybe in the history of this game," Green says. "My thing with Kurt has been: 'Look, you are an MVP player. You've proven that. But you can't do it by yourself. That's been proven, too.'
"If we make sure the linemen know we've got a hell of a quarterback, but he needs protection ... if you do your job, he'll deliver."
When told he doesn't have to be the guy who threw darts to Torry Holt, Isaac Bruce and Marshall Faulk for Arizona to win, Warner's signature confidence bursts through.
"I believe I'm going to be the same guy who won the MVPs and won the Super Bowl," Warner says. "Yeah, there's a certain aspect of leadership that goes into the position, and that is a big piece of what I bring here. I hope to have a year where I can be the guy making the difference like I did in St. Louis. New York was a different situation. They didn't call on me to do the same things I did in St. Louis.
"Everybody looks at that and says, 'Well, he's lost this and can't do that.' What I'd love to do, and what I think my strengths are, are doing the things I did in St. Louis: being able to make the throw down the field. That's what this offense is all about. That's what I'm excited about."
Remember the name Clancy Pendergast. You're likely to be hearing more about Arizona's 37-year-old defensive coordinator. He orchestrated a 12th-ranked unit that was second in red-zone defense.
Five of Arizona's 10 losses were by a touchdown or less. By adding free agent defensive end Chike Okeafor and linebacker Orlando Huff and drafting cornerbacks Antrel Rolle and Eric Green and linebacker Darryl Blackstock, Dennis Green and vice president of football operations Rod Graves gave Pendergast plenty of options.
Arizona's weakness was against the run, where it ranked 27th, allowing a 100-yard rusher in 13 of 16 games.
"Now we want to be a tough-minded defensive unit," Pendergast says. "Our goal is to be a top five defense."
Dockett and Dansby ensure the "D" in Arizona will be upper case. Along with Berry, who had 14½ sacks, they are Pendergast's weapons of mass disruption. "Doc" and Dansby are friends and emerging leaders fueled by disrespect after slipping in the draft because of character questions. Green took a chance each will never forget.
"Denny's demanding, but he speaks the truth," Dansby says. "I'll lay it all on the line for that guy. I can feel this team turning. It's time for a change."
Boldin broke ranks with fellow Drew Rosenhaus-represented holdout receivers Terrell Owens and Javon Walker.
A 2003 Pro Bowler with an NFL rookie-record 101 catches, Boldin showed leadership by reporting for a recent minicamp.
"My point to Anquan was, we can win, but we have to win by all working together," Green says. "We want to get a contract extension, and I think we'll do it at a good number. He's a great competitor who has a lot to prove."
Boldin missed six games in 2004 with a knee injury, and Fitzgerald, hindered by an ankle sprain, played hurt last season.
Now they're healthy. Fitzgerald caught 58 passes with eight touchdowns and has the speed to get deep. Boldin is fearless over the middle and runs well after the catch.
They are pumped by Warner's arrival.
"Kurt walks into this facility and he automatically gives us leadership," Boldin says. "Kurt throws a nice, catchable ball, and he has great anticipation for where his receivers should be.
"He's out to prove himself, and when someone is out to prove themselves, there's no limit to what they can do."
Green has those tired eyes that come from studying plenty of game video in a dark room as he welcomes a visitor to his second-floor office. He is working hard to exorcise the demon holding the Cardinals back by helping the players believe that they can win close games.
That belief separates the three-time world champion New England Patriots. They always find that way.
"It's the whole defeat of the defeatist, negative attitude," Green says. "When you say we got Chike, Oliver, Orlando, Kurt and (safety) Robert Griffith this offseason, that's positive reinforcement."
Like Warner, the Cardinals have more doubters than believers.
"There's a lot of skepticism," Green says. "People are saying, 'You're singing the song of a turnaround guy,' which I've always been. But this is a program that has always been in a turnaround. So there are a lot of people who still want to wait and see."
Though his team had been scheduled to play at home that day, Green opted to play an Oct. 2 game against San Francisco in Mexico City to give the Cardinals their lone national broadcast of the year — it will be ESPN's Sunday night game. It also exposes his team to a sellout, something his players rarely see.
Two proud men accustomed to winning, Green and Warner need each other in this credibility year.
"People thought he was done," Green says. "The correlation with Kurt and I is that you always want to climb that mountain. I was out of the game, living a great life in San Diego. Then, I get a call where they're looking to turn this program around.
"I said, 'I like that idea.' That's Kurt's mentality, too. Let's do something that people say you can't."
Warner seems the perfect evangelist for this desert tent revival.
He comes energized by courage witnessed during a two-week February tour of tsunami-ravaged Indonesia and Sri Lanka accompanied by former Giants teammate Amani Toomer and their wives.
"That was a life-changing experience," Warner says. "To see the way those people attacked life and the way they were pressing forward in the midst of tragedy was really inspiring. You go over there with the idea of, how can I make a difference? And I came back inspired to live my life with that same spirit these people do no matter what trial I go through or what success I have."
The two-time MVP is once more a huge underdog. Just the way he likes it.
"It doesn't matter what anybody on the outside thinks," Warner says. "It's that group inside that locker room.
"I don't run an extra sprint because Mr. Media Guy says I can't play any more or I can't throw. But I want to be the best. Yeah, there is skepticism about the Cardinals or about me. Just going out and proving ourselves every week, we're going to prove people wrong.
"My goal is Super Bowl or bust."
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/cards/2005-05-25-warner-sw-cover_x.htm?POE=SPOISVA
TEMPE, Ariz. — The desert sun is pushing 100 degrees by 9 o'clock on a pristine morning when Kurt Warner and some new Arizona Cardinals teammates hold a spirited quarterback challenge after an hour of working on pass routes. Warner, quarterbacks Josh McCown and John Navarre and receivers Anquan Boldin and Bryant Johnson morph from men at work to playful kids at a carnival test of skill.
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In their white T-shirts and red shorts, they take turns trying to hit the side of a goal post upright with a football from the end zone sideline. It's a tough angle, but Warner flicks a bull's-eye off the far upright on his final attempt.
Is it an omen that Warner is up to winning a far greater quarterback challenge — resurrecting the Cardinals and his reputation?
The two-time league MVP and Super Bowl XXXIV MVP has come to the Valley of the Sun to burn off the shadow of doubt that has hovered over him since the 2003 beginning that was his end in St. Louis — a six-fumble, season-opening loss to the Giants. Warner played on despite suffering a first-quarter concussion, but coach Mike Martz passed the torch to Marc Bulger thereafter.
Can a deeply religious man become a born-again playoff quarterback, coalescing belief on a young, talented team hungry to win? Can Warner and the Cardinals be more surprise than desert mirage entering respected coach Dennis Green's second season?
"I'm here to start a revival now," Warner says. "I wanted to come here to re-establish myself and help this team do great things.
"There are a lot of people from different places that come out here to retire or for the climate who have never been Cardinals fans. They're just waiting for a winner. It's an awesome opportunity to establish ourselves. Once we do, the sky's the limit."
There are two risings taking place in the greater Phoenix area — Green's Cardinals and a state-of-the-art, $370 million stadium that resembles a giant silver spaceship with its shimmering panels built to reflect the shifting desert light. The landmark in the West Valley community of Glendale has a retractable grass field to match its retractable roof. It is on schedule to open for the 2006 NFL season.
The 2005 season is all about Green's team proving it is worthy of that football palace.
The Cardinals, 6-10 last year, have long been the other noted void in the Grand Canyon State. Compared to Arizona's natural wonder, they are the dry well that has yielded one winning season — 9-7 in 1998 — since arriving from St. Louis in 1988.
Green has turned around programs from Northwestern to the Minnesota Vikings, who reached the playoffs eight times in 10 seasons from 1992-2001. After a stint as an ESPN analyst, Green spent his second offseason with the Cardinals overhauling the roster and attitude. He signed Warner to a one-year, $4 million deal to deliver the ball to big-play receivers Boldin, Johnson and Larry Fitzgerald. Last year's starter, third-year man McCown, went 6-7 in 13 starts before Green benched him for Shaun King, then Navarre.
To complement a spread passing attack, Green drafted running back J.J. Arrington 44th overall. The former University of California runner with 4.4 speed was the only Division I-A back to rush for more than 2,000 yards last season. Green added playmakers to a playoff-caliber defense led by Pro Bowl defensive end Bertrand Berry, second-year defensive tackle Darnell Dockett and linebacker Karlos Dansby.
"I'm here to be successful," Green says. "That's why I came here with my wife, two kids and our two dogs.
"That's why this is a crucial year. We want to have a product that people will start coming out and recognizing that this is a team that you've got to see play. You've got to see J.J. Arrington run and Karlos Dansby and Darnell Dockett do their thing and chase people around the stadium.
"We feel we're going to be the next hot 'it.' We're committed to it."
Green summoned Dockett, a gifted tackle with tattoos and flowing dreadlocks, to his office last month. Ticketed for illegal parking as he did some extra lifting, Dockett feared a fine. Green sent a more important message.
"I went up to Coach's office, and he looked at me and said: 'I can't have another year like last year. Not only that, I can't let you have another year like that,' " Dockett says. "I said: 'Coach, I'm ready. I'm glad about everything you've done this offseason.'
"I expect us to go to the playoffs and not doing the wild-card thing."
One month shy of his 34th birthday, Warner's best football is behind him. That's not to say the man who threw 98 touchdowns in his first three seasons can't deliver the Cardinals to the playoffs. But he must be surrounded by better protection and weapons than he had in New York.
Warner is a rhythmic passer who was never allowed to get his groove back as an offensive caretaker behind the Giants' Mendoza line last season.
After leading the Giants to a 5-2 start, he started holding the ball too long and was sacked 13 times in his last two starts against Chicago and Arizona. Coach Tom Coughlin then turned to Eli Manning.
Warner finished with an 86.5 passer rating, throwing six touchdowns and four interceptions.
Green and offensive coordinator Keith Rowen studied tape of every throw Warner made last season. They are convinced Warner can get his mojo back. Much depends on a still-developing offensive line.
"We feel good about his ability to still throw the ball, and he has great anticipation, timing and innate toughness," Rowen says. "The term 'holding onto the ball' has come up. For what we do here, we believe he'll be a fit."
Rowen worked under Green in Minnesota and for Warner's former Rams coach Dick Vermeil in Kansas City last season. The plan is to re-create a passing game similar to Green's Vikings' version with Randy Moss, Cris Carter and Jake Reed.
Signing free agent right tackle Oliver Ross from Pittsburgh added a bookend pass protector opposite left tackle Leonard Davis.
"You'd like to believe if you have two tackles who can hold their own or better, you have the chance to be a pretty good line," Rowen says. "We can't hedge and say, 'We're young.' We have no excuses."
A former Iowa running back who drove a truck as a graduate assistant for the Hawkeyes, Green can relate to Warner, a former Iowa Barnstormer (in the Arena Football League) who rose from supermarket stock boy to Super Bowl MVP.
His first three seasons triggering "The Greatest Show on Turf" were so meteoric, it was as if Warner walked out of an Iowa cornfield and into legend. But the rise has been followed by an equally dramatic fall.
"Kurt's story was the most incredible story maybe in the history of this game," Green says. "My thing with Kurt has been: 'Look, you are an MVP player. You've proven that. But you can't do it by yourself. That's been proven, too.'
"If we make sure the linemen know we've got a hell of a quarterback, but he needs protection ... if you do your job, he'll deliver."
When told he doesn't have to be the guy who threw darts to Torry Holt, Isaac Bruce and Marshall Faulk for Arizona to win, Warner's signature confidence bursts through.
"I believe I'm going to be the same guy who won the MVPs and won the Super Bowl," Warner says. "Yeah, there's a certain aspect of leadership that goes into the position, and that is a big piece of what I bring here. I hope to have a year where I can be the guy making the difference like I did in St. Louis. New York was a different situation. They didn't call on me to do the same things I did in St. Louis.
"Everybody looks at that and says, 'Well, he's lost this and can't do that.' What I'd love to do, and what I think my strengths are, are doing the things I did in St. Louis: being able to make the throw down the field. That's what this offense is all about. That's what I'm excited about."
Remember the name Clancy Pendergast. You're likely to be hearing more about Arizona's 37-year-old defensive coordinator. He orchestrated a 12th-ranked unit that was second in red-zone defense.
Five of Arizona's 10 losses were by a touchdown or less. By adding free agent defensive end Chike Okeafor and linebacker Orlando Huff and drafting cornerbacks Antrel Rolle and Eric Green and linebacker Darryl Blackstock, Dennis Green and vice president of football operations Rod Graves gave Pendergast plenty of options.
Arizona's weakness was against the run, where it ranked 27th, allowing a 100-yard rusher in 13 of 16 games.
"Now we want to be a tough-minded defensive unit," Pendergast says. "Our goal is to be a top five defense."
Dockett and Dansby ensure the "D" in Arizona will be upper case. Along with Berry, who had 14½ sacks, they are Pendergast's weapons of mass disruption. "Doc" and Dansby are friends and emerging leaders fueled by disrespect after slipping in the draft because of character questions. Green took a chance each will never forget.
"Denny's demanding, but he speaks the truth," Dansby says. "I'll lay it all on the line for that guy. I can feel this team turning. It's time for a change."
Boldin broke ranks with fellow Drew Rosenhaus-represented holdout receivers Terrell Owens and Javon Walker.
A 2003 Pro Bowler with an NFL rookie-record 101 catches, Boldin showed leadership by reporting for a recent minicamp.
"My point to Anquan was, we can win, but we have to win by all working together," Green says. "We want to get a contract extension, and I think we'll do it at a good number. He's a great competitor who has a lot to prove."
Boldin missed six games in 2004 with a knee injury, and Fitzgerald, hindered by an ankle sprain, played hurt last season.
Now they're healthy. Fitzgerald caught 58 passes with eight touchdowns and has the speed to get deep. Boldin is fearless over the middle and runs well after the catch.
They are pumped by Warner's arrival.
"Kurt walks into this facility and he automatically gives us leadership," Boldin says. "Kurt throws a nice, catchable ball, and he has great anticipation for where his receivers should be.
"He's out to prove himself, and when someone is out to prove themselves, there's no limit to what they can do."
Green has those tired eyes that come from studying plenty of game video in a dark room as he welcomes a visitor to his second-floor office. He is working hard to exorcise the demon holding the Cardinals back by helping the players believe that they can win close games.
That belief separates the three-time world champion New England Patriots. They always find that way.
"It's the whole defeat of the defeatist, negative attitude," Green says. "When you say we got Chike, Oliver, Orlando, Kurt and (safety) Robert Griffith this offseason, that's positive reinforcement."
Like Warner, the Cardinals have more doubters than believers.
"There's a lot of skepticism," Green says. "People are saying, 'You're singing the song of a turnaround guy,' which I've always been. But this is a program that has always been in a turnaround. So there are a lot of people who still want to wait and see."
Though his team had been scheduled to play at home that day, Green opted to play an Oct. 2 game against San Francisco in Mexico City to give the Cardinals their lone national broadcast of the year — it will be ESPN's Sunday night game. It also exposes his team to a sellout, something his players rarely see.
Two proud men accustomed to winning, Green and Warner need each other in this credibility year.
"People thought he was done," Green says. "The correlation with Kurt and I is that you always want to climb that mountain. I was out of the game, living a great life in San Diego. Then, I get a call where they're looking to turn this program around.
"I said, 'I like that idea.' That's Kurt's mentality, too. Let's do something that people say you can't."
Warner seems the perfect evangelist for this desert tent revival.
He comes energized by courage witnessed during a two-week February tour of tsunami-ravaged Indonesia and Sri Lanka accompanied by former Giants teammate Amani Toomer and their wives.
"That was a life-changing experience," Warner says. "To see the way those people attacked life and the way they were pressing forward in the midst of tragedy was really inspiring. You go over there with the idea of, how can I make a difference? And I came back inspired to live my life with that same spirit these people do no matter what trial I go through or what success I have."
The two-time MVP is once more a huge underdog. Just the way he likes it.
"It doesn't matter what anybody on the outside thinks," Warner says. "It's that group inside that locker room.
"I don't run an extra sprint because Mr. Media Guy says I can't play any more or I can't throw. But I want to be the best. Yeah, there is skepticism about the Cardinals or about me. Just going out and proving ourselves every week, we're going to prove people wrong.
"My goal is Super Bowl or bust."
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/cards/2005-05-25-warner-sw-cover_x.htm?POE=SPOISVA
!!!!!!
