az1965
Love Games!
Warner ready to prove himself - again
Odeen Domingo
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 31, 2005 12:00 AM
Kurt Warner sits, as comfortable as he is in the pocket on a football field, in a black, leather office chair behind a big, sturdy desk much like the offensive line he needs to succeed.
His demeanor speaks as loudly as the calm in his voice. For Warner, showing he belongs in the NFL, even ranks among the league's best quarterbacks, comes as naturally as breathing.
"The thing about it is, it's really all I know," Warner says, his head level, his gaze unblinking. "It really is what this competition thing is all about. I love to have to prove myself. I feel like every time I step on the practice field, I have to prove myself. I feel like every time I go out there on Sunday, winning an MVP or fighting for that starting job, I have to prove myself."
The journey of perpetual authentication continues as Cardinals players report to training camp today, the first day to jump-start a career that stalled on the way to the Hall of Fame.
Warner won a Super Bowl, a Super Bowl Most Valuable Player award and two league MVPs with the St. Louis Rams from 1999-2001, but now he is with his third team in three years, and since 2002 the question has been: "What happened to Kurt Warner?"
Nothing, the 34-year-old would say. He has his family, which includes wife Brenda and five children, and his faith. His confidence never wavers.
Hand injuries, concussions and off-the-field distractions played a role in the sojourn to Arizona, but Warner doesn't question his path.
Cardinals head coach Dennis Green made Warner his priority among free-agent quarterbacks during the off-season, and in March, Warner signed a one-year deal.
Warner is receiving positive vibes heading into this season. He's on a Kate Hudson-like pace for magazine covers. The media are picking the Cardinals to become the surprise team in the league.
Former Rams coach Dick Vermeil said all Warner needs is time in the pocket. How much? Enough to read the following quote.
"He has the ability to slow the game down, and he executes extremely well," Vermeil said. "He has to have a supporting cast, and I'm talking about the offensive line. Quarterbacks like Kurt Warner need good pass protection. He's not going to panic. He's going to hold onto the ball and go through the progressions."
That's what Warner does. For him, every season - every play - happens under pressure.
Who expected this to happen - the fame, the questions, this article?
Forget what happened on the way to the Hall of Fame.
What happened on the way to manager-of-the-supermarket obscurity?
Ten years ago Kurt Warner becoming a household name seemed as likely as a lion becoming a vegan.
Warner, an Iowa native, never received a scholarship offer after graduating high school. In 1994, after completing his college career at Division I-AA Northern Iowa, where he didn't start until his fifth year, he was making $5.50 an hour stocking shelves at a Hy-Vee grocery store in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
During the day, Warner would work on his passing, because he still believed he could make it to the NFL, even after being so nervous during a training-camp tryout with the Green Bay Packers that he couldn't take a snap during a preseason game.
He played for the now-defunct Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena Football League for three years, becoming an All-League player.
Making it to NFL
Still, 12 NFL teams and every team in the Canadian Football League turned him down.
He earned a 1997 tryout with the Chicago Bears but was forced to postpone it because during his honeymoon in Jamaica, a spider bit his throwing arm.
The Rams signed Warner in 1998 even though then-offensive coordinator Jerry Rome didn't attend Warner's workout.
Warner played in NFL Europe that summer but wasn't a lock to make the Rams' 53-man roster. During the 1998 preseason, the team had to decide who would take the No. 3 quarterback job: Warner or Will Furrer, a Rome favorite?
Vermeil had a hunch about Warner, so the Rams kept him.
In 1999, Rams starting quarterback Trent Green suffered a season-ending knee injury in the preseason and Warner, by then the No. 2 quarterback on the depth chart with 11 NFL passes on his résumé, headed into the season as the starter.
Just 4,353 yards, 41 touchdowns, a 109.2 passer rating, an MVP, a Super Bowl MVP and a Super Bowl title later, Warner was arguably one of the greatest stories in NFL history.
"I said at the time, and I still believe this, that this is not only the biggest story ever in the NFL in terms of where he came from, but the biggest in all of sports," said Pro Football Weekly columnist Howard Balzer, who lives in St. Louis. "Show me a story in any sport ever who has accomplished what he has."
Even Warner couldn't believe his accomplishments. The night the Rams won the NFC championship game, Warner and Brenda laid in bed in silence. Then, they looked at each other at the same time and said together, in awe, "We're going to the Super Bowl."
Somewhere, a lion passed up meat for some leaves and berries.
Another ending
Warner was perfect.
Reporters in the press box shook their heads at the accuracy of his passes, his mastery of the abyss that was the Rams offensive playbook.
Off the field, Warner accommodated everyone. He did every interview, every speaking engagement, smiled for the cameras and told his rags-to-riches story.
He went from stocking Campbell's Soup cans to endorsing them.
Through the first six games of the 2000 season, Warner couldn't be contained. He threw 18 touchdowns and completed 69 percent of his passes.
But it didn't last.
In the seventh game, Warner broke a finger and missed the next five. He came back to play five games, including a postseason loss to the Saints, but he threw almost twice as many interceptions (11) as touchdowns (six).
That created a little panic in St. Louis. After winning an MVP and a Super Bowl, Warner had to prove he could do it again.
He calmed the city in 2001, earning another league MVP and taking the Rams to the Super Bowl, where during a loss to the New England Patriots, Warner aggravated ligament damage in his right thumb.
So it began, a downfall as bizarre as his uprising.
Just like no one could have predicted Warner's fame, no one could have foreseen the dreaded 2002 season.
His hand became a magnet for injury. He threw just one touchdown with eight interceptions through the first four games. He injured his hand twice and missed nine games overall.
After Warner didn't play well in a December game, Rams coach Mike Martz said he told Warner to get X-rays. Brenda called a local radio station and said that she, not Martz, had suggested her husband should get X-rays.
That angered Martz. Brenda has yet to apologize for her actions. Warner never apologized for her, believing her comments were taken out of context.
The incident affected the locker room, Pro Football Weekly's Balzer said.
"I'm not saying he should have thrown his wife under the bus, but he could have been a guy's guy, addressed it and not have it still hanging there," he said. "But he didn't address it. That traces to his pride to his faith and family. Not to say he doesn't have (pride) to his team and the sport, but some things come first, even though you're competing."
Martz stuck with Warner as the starter going into the 2003 season. In the first game, Warner fumbled six times and lost four, including one in the end zone. He would never start in a Rams uniform again.
Through the course of the season, Brenda voiced her opinion on local radio, saying a trade would be welcomed if her husband wasn't going to play.
After the season, Warner told reporters at the Super Bowl that his religious beliefs might have been a factor in his demotion. That also angered Martz, and Warner apologized later that week.
The Rams released him in June.
The New York Giants quickly signed Warner and made him their starting quarterback going into the 2004 season, but they turned the job over to No. 1 draft pick Eli Manning after nine games.
Warner doesn't want to comment on the controversies.
"More than anything I don't even want to get into it," he says. "I think it's one of those things where the people involved know the situation, and it's not worth bringing up again. And we all have our feeling and understanding why things took place and how those things transpired.
"That's really nothing positive, so to me, it's not worth rehashing."
Martz could not be reached for comment.
Beginning again
Many thought the free-agent quarterback who has had hand injuries, concussions and turnover problems was done. Even Vermeil, Warner's former coach who is now the head coach in Kansas City, said Warner may have been holding the ball too long with the Giants.
He lost the ball 11 times in his nine starts. He has been sacked 56 times in his past 14 games, dating to the 2002 season.
The Cardinals sacked Warner six times in their defeat of the Giants last season, but Coach Green said he saw enough good things in Warner's game.
"We felt he still has what it takes to be a winner in the league and to be a leader," Green said. "Difficulty is a part of the game, there are very few guys who have clear sailing in the National Football League. It's too competitive of a game.
"I think he's going to climb the mountain. His resurgence is nothing compared to the Arizona Cardinals'."
The Cardinals won six games last season, Green's first as head coach, after winning just nine in their previous two years.
That doesn't faze Warner. He's here to win Super Bowls.
"That's the bottom line," he says. "I want to be the best. . . . I don't care where I'm at. I don't care what I've been through."
This season is just another to outlast the swirling rumors and heated opinions.
Warner recounts an anecdote from his all-important family archives.
After the Rams won the Super Bowl in 1999, Warner called home and spoke to his son Zachary, "Hey, Zach! We just won the Super Bowl! It was awesome!"
Zachary replied: "Yeah, whatever, Dad. I'm watching Veggie Tales right now."
Warner just laughed. He wouldn't have expected anything else.
"They keep you grounded," Warner says. "You're just Dad. They don't care about all that stuff."
And with that, he is done.
Just another session sharing his improbable story, his belief that he can duplicate the impossible.
He rises, takes a breath and walks out the door.
Who is this guy?
Curt Warner? The former Penn State All-American and Seattle Seahawks Pro Bowl running back?
No, some other guy. Spells his first name with a "K." Played at an unknown college (Northern Iowa), got a look-see by the Green Bay Packers in 1994, then worked stocking shelves at a grocery store in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In 1995 he hooked on with the Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena Football League. He was an All-League player in 1996 and 1997.
That got him noticed by the St. Louis Rams, who signed him and shipped him off to NFL Europe, still far off the beaten pro football path.
Funny thing happened, though - he came back to the Rams in 1999, as a backup to Trent Green, and when Green went down with a preseason injury, the unknown, untested Warner stepped into the lineup.
'Greatest Show on Turf'
The 1999 season could have been a disaster for the Rams without their starting quarterback. Instead, it turned into a season for the history books, all because of Warner.
Throwing a stunning 41 touchdown passes to the likes of Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt and Marshall Faulk, Warner took the Rams to their first Super Bowl championship. He won both the regular season and the Super Bowl MVP awards.
Warner broke his hand and missed a big chunk of the 2000 season but the following year regained his form, throwing 36 touchdown passes and again winning NFL MVP honors. He led St. Louis back to the Super Bowl, but things didn't go so well.
The New England Patriots harassed and blitzed Warner early and often and won on a last-second field goal.
QB controversies
Warner was never the same player for the Rams. He struggled early in 2002 - some say his passing velocity dropped significantly - as the Rams started 0-6. He wound up breaking a finger and, when he returned in '03, ran smack into a heated debate: Should he get his job back, or should the Rams stick with Marc Bulger, who was very successful during Warner's absence.
Coach Mike Martz named Warner to start the opener, but it was a disaster - fumbles, interceptions and a concussion. His Rams career was essentially over, and in June 2004 he was released.
The New York Giants quickly signed him, and he got off to a fast start in the fall, winning five of the first seven games, but when the team slumped it turned to Eli Manning, the No. 1 pick in that year's draft and clearly the future of the franchise.
It was time for Warner, the NFL's all-time leader in completion percentage and second in career passer rating, to move on again.
Odeen Domingo
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 31, 2005 12:00 AM
Kurt Warner sits, as comfortable as he is in the pocket on a football field, in a black, leather office chair behind a big, sturdy desk much like the offensive line he needs to succeed.
His demeanor speaks as loudly as the calm in his voice. For Warner, showing he belongs in the NFL, even ranks among the league's best quarterbacks, comes as naturally as breathing.
"The thing about it is, it's really all I know," Warner says, his head level, his gaze unblinking. "It really is what this competition thing is all about. I love to have to prove myself. I feel like every time I step on the practice field, I have to prove myself. I feel like every time I go out there on Sunday, winning an MVP or fighting for that starting job, I have to prove myself."
The journey of perpetual authentication continues as Cardinals players report to training camp today, the first day to jump-start a career that stalled on the way to the Hall of Fame.
Warner won a Super Bowl, a Super Bowl Most Valuable Player award and two league MVPs with the St. Louis Rams from 1999-2001, but now he is with his third team in three years, and since 2002 the question has been: "What happened to Kurt Warner?"
Nothing, the 34-year-old would say. He has his family, which includes wife Brenda and five children, and his faith. His confidence never wavers.
Hand injuries, concussions and off-the-field distractions played a role in the sojourn to Arizona, but Warner doesn't question his path.
Cardinals head coach Dennis Green made Warner his priority among free-agent quarterbacks during the off-season, and in March, Warner signed a one-year deal.
Warner is receiving positive vibes heading into this season. He's on a Kate Hudson-like pace for magazine covers. The media are picking the Cardinals to become the surprise team in the league.
Former Rams coach Dick Vermeil said all Warner needs is time in the pocket. How much? Enough to read the following quote.
"He has the ability to slow the game down, and he executes extremely well," Vermeil said. "He has to have a supporting cast, and I'm talking about the offensive line. Quarterbacks like Kurt Warner need good pass protection. He's not going to panic. He's going to hold onto the ball and go through the progressions."
That's what Warner does. For him, every season - every play - happens under pressure.
Who expected this to happen - the fame, the questions, this article?
Forget what happened on the way to the Hall of Fame.
What happened on the way to manager-of-the-supermarket obscurity?
Ten years ago Kurt Warner becoming a household name seemed as likely as a lion becoming a vegan.
Warner, an Iowa native, never received a scholarship offer after graduating high school. In 1994, after completing his college career at Division I-AA Northern Iowa, where he didn't start until his fifth year, he was making $5.50 an hour stocking shelves at a Hy-Vee grocery store in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
During the day, Warner would work on his passing, because he still believed he could make it to the NFL, even after being so nervous during a training-camp tryout with the Green Bay Packers that he couldn't take a snap during a preseason game.
He played for the now-defunct Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena Football League for three years, becoming an All-League player.
Making it to NFL
Still, 12 NFL teams and every team in the Canadian Football League turned him down.
He earned a 1997 tryout with the Chicago Bears but was forced to postpone it because during his honeymoon in Jamaica, a spider bit his throwing arm.
The Rams signed Warner in 1998 even though then-offensive coordinator Jerry Rome didn't attend Warner's workout.
Warner played in NFL Europe that summer but wasn't a lock to make the Rams' 53-man roster. During the 1998 preseason, the team had to decide who would take the No. 3 quarterback job: Warner or Will Furrer, a Rome favorite?
Vermeil had a hunch about Warner, so the Rams kept him.
In 1999, Rams starting quarterback Trent Green suffered a season-ending knee injury in the preseason and Warner, by then the No. 2 quarterback on the depth chart with 11 NFL passes on his résumé, headed into the season as the starter.
Just 4,353 yards, 41 touchdowns, a 109.2 passer rating, an MVP, a Super Bowl MVP and a Super Bowl title later, Warner was arguably one of the greatest stories in NFL history.
"I said at the time, and I still believe this, that this is not only the biggest story ever in the NFL in terms of where he came from, but the biggest in all of sports," said Pro Football Weekly columnist Howard Balzer, who lives in St. Louis. "Show me a story in any sport ever who has accomplished what he has."
Even Warner couldn't believe his accomplishments. The night the Rams won the NFC championship game, Warner and Brenda laid in bed in silence. Then, they looked at each other at the same time and said together, in awe, "We're going to the Super Bowl."
Somewhere, a lion passed up meat for some leaves and berries.
Another ending
Warner was perfect.
Reporters in the press box shook their heads at the accuracy of his passes, his mastery of the abyss that was the Rams offensive playbook.
Off the field, Warner accommodated everyone. He did every interview, every speaking engagement, smiled for the cameras and told his rags-to-riches story.
He went from stocking Campbell's Soup cans to endorsing them.
Through the first six games of the 2000 season, Warner couldn't be contained. He threw 18 touchdowns and completed 69 percent of his passes.
But it didn't last.
In the seventh game, Warner broke a finger and missed the next five. He came back to play five games, including a postseason loss to the Saints, but he threw almost twice as many interceptions (11) as touchdowns (six).
That created a little panic in St. Louis. After winning an MVP and a Super Bowl, Warner had to prove he could do it again.
He calmed the city in 2001, earning another league MVP and taking the Rams to the Super Bowl, where during a loss to the New England Patriots, Warner aggravated ligament damage in his right thumb.
So it began, a downfall as bizarre as his uprising.
Just like no one could have predicted Warner's fame, no one could have foreseen the dreaded 2002 season.
His hand became a magnet for injury. He threw just one touchdown with eight interceptions through the first four games. He injured his hand twice and missed nine games overall.
After Warner didn't play well in a December game, Rams coach Mike Martz said he told Warner to get X-rays. Brenda called a local radio station and said that she, not Martz, had suggested her husband should get X-rays.
That angered Martz. Brenda has yet to apologize for her actions. Warner never apologized for her, believing her comments were taken out of context.
The incident affected the locker room, Pro Football Weekly's Balzer said.
"I'm not saying he should have thrown his wife under the bus, but he could have been a guy's guy, addressed it and not have it still hanging there," he said. "But he didn't address it. That traces to his pride to his faith and family. Not to say he doesn't have (pride) to his team and the sport, but some things come first, even though you're competing."
Martz stuck with Warner as the starter going into the 2003 season. In the first game, Warner fumbled six times and lost four, including one in the end zone. He would never start in a Rams uniform again.
Through the course of the season, Brenda voiced her opinion on local radio, saying a trade would be welcomed if her husband wasn't going to play.
After the season, Warner told reporters at the Super Bowl that his religious beliefs might have been a factor in his demotion. That also angered Martz, and Warner apologized later that week.
The Rams released him in June.
The New York Giants quickly signed Warner and made him their starting quarterback going into the 2004 season, but they turned the job over to No. 1 draft pick Eli Manning after nine games.
Warner doesn't want to comment on the controversies.
"More than anything I don't even want to get into it," he says. "I think it's one of those things where the people involved know the situation, and it's not worth bringing up again. And we all have our feeling and understanding why things took place and how those things transpired.
"That's really nothing positive, so to me, it's not worth rehashing."
Martz could not be reached for comment.
Beginning again
Many thought the free-agent quarterback who has had hand injuries, concussions and turnover problems was done. Even Vermeil, Warner's former coach who is now the head coach in Kansas City, said Warner may have been holding the ball too long with the Giants.
He lost the ball 11 times in his nine starts. He has been sacked 56 times in his past 14 games, dating to the 2002 season.
The Cardinals sacked Warner six times in their defeat of the Giants last season, but Coach Green said he saw enough good things in Warner's game.
"We felt he still has what it takes to be a winner in the league and to be a leader," Green said. "Difficulty is a part of the game, there are very few guys who have clear sailing in the National Football League. It's too competitive of a game.
"I think he's going to climb the mountain. His resurgence is nothing compared to the Arizona Cardinals'."
The Cardinals won six games last season, Green's first as head coach, after winning just nine in their previous two years.
That doesn't faze Warner. He's here to win Super Bowls.
"That's the bottom line," he says. "I want to be the best. . . . I don't care where I'm at. I don't care what I've been through."
This season is just another to outlast the swirling rumors and heated opinions.
Warner recounts an anecdote from his all-important family archives.
After the Rams won the Super Bowl in 1999, Warner called home and spoke to his son Zachary, "Hey, Zach! We just won the Super Bowl! It was awesome!"
Zachary replied: "Yeah, whatever, Dad. I'm watching Veggie Tales right now."
Warner just laughed. He wouldn't have expected anything else.
"They keep you grounded," Warner says. "You're just Dad. They don't care about all that stuff."
And with that, he is done.
Just another session sharing his improbable story, his belief that he can duplicate the impossible.
He rises, takes a breath and walks out the door.
Who is this guy?
Curt Warner? The former Penn State All-American and Seattle Seahawks Pro Bowl running back?
No, some other guy. Spells his first name with a "K." Played at an unknown college (Northern Iowa), got a look-see by the Green Bay Packers in 1994, then worked stocking shelves at a grocery store in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In 1995 he hooked on with the Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena Football League. He was an All-League player in 1996 and 1997.
That got him noticed by the St. Louis Rams, who signed him and shipped him off to NFL Europe, still far off the beaten pro football path.
Funny thing happened, though - he came back to the Rams in 1999, as a backup to Trent Green, and when Green went down with a preseason injury, the unknown, untested Warner stepped into the lineup.
'Greatest Show on Turf'
The 1999 season could have been a disaster for the Rams without their starting quarterback. Instead, it turned into a season for the history books, all because of Warner.
Throwing a stunning 41 touchdown passes to the likes of Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt and Marshall Faulk, Warner took the Rams to their first Super Bowl championship. He won both the regular season and the Super Bowl MVP awards.
Warner broke his hand and missed a big chunk of the 2000 season but the following year regained his form, throwing 36 touchdown passes and again winning NFL MVP honors. He led St. Louis back to the Super Bowl, but things didn't go so well.
The New England Patriots harassed and blitzed Warner early and often and won on a last-second field goal.
QB controversies
Warner was never the same player for the Rams. He struggled early in 2002 - some say his passing velocity dropped significantly - as the Rams started 0-6. He wound up breaking a finger and, when he returned in '03, ran smack into a heated debate: Should he get his job back, or should the Rams stick with Marc Bulger, who was very successful during Warner's absence.
Coach Mike Martz named Warner to start the opener, but it was a disaster - fumbles, interceptions and a concussion. His Rams career was essentially over, and in June 2004 he was released.
The New York Giants quickly signed him, and he got off to a fast start in the fall, winning five of the first seven games, but when the team slumped it turned to Eli Manning, the No. 1 pick in that year's draft and clearly the future of the franchise.
It was time for Warner, the NFL's all-time leader in completion percentage and second in career passer rating, to move on again.
