Unlikely road took Warner to Canton
PHOENIX— Kurt Warner was 28 years old before he became a starting NFL quarterback, a late start for a hall of fame career.
Before that came one season as a starter at Northern Iowa; time stocking grocery shelves to make ends meet; three years of Arena Football; and one year in NFL Europe.
It’s a remarkable journey that led him to three Super Bowls with two franchises. He won one Super Bowl, was voted NFL MVP twice and Super Bowl MVP once.
And he might not have gotten the opportunity had St. Louis starter Trent Green not gone down with an injury in 1999.
Suddenly Warner was a starter, and the Rams took off, evolving into “The Greatest Show on Turf.”
By the time he called it quits after the 2009 season, he had led the Rams to two Super Bowls, winning one, and had guided the long-downtrodden Arizona Cardinals to their only Super Bowl appearance, nearly winning it.
He appreciates that hall of fame voters were able to look beyond his statistics, which he acknowledges don’t approach those of many of the game’s greats.
“They felt that they couldn’t write the history of professional football without me,” Warner said in an interview with The Associated Press. “I’m very honoured and humbled that anybody — but that a collective group of people — felt that way.”
In between St. Louis and Arizona was a brief stop with the New York Giants, where his style didn’t really fit the system and he was benched in favour of rookie Eli Manning.
Warner was looking for work after that and wound up in Arizona with a franchise with a history of failure.
But in 2008, he took the Cardinals on an unexpected run to the Super Bowl and a narrow loss to Pittsburgh.
In that run, the combination of Warner to a young Larry Fitzgerald was the greatest passing duo in any single post-season.
“You could see the two-time MVP, Super Bowl champion, Super Bowl MVP, you’re kind of just in awe,” Fitzgerald said.
“And then you get to know him as a man, you see how humble he was and how down to earth, approachable, family oriented, just a wonderful teammate. You just gained more respect for the kind of person he was.”
Warner knows it’s an unusual resume.
“I didn’t get the opportunities everybody else did,” he said. “Even in the middle of my career I had some crazy things happen where some of those opportunities were taken away from me. But when I played the game, when I stepped between those lines, I took advantage of every opportunity.
“And I think I played this game the right way and as well as anybody that’s ever played it.”
Warner’s last game at home came in a playoff contest against Green Bay in the 2009 season. The Cardinals won 51-45 in overtime. Warner had more touchdown passes (five) than he did incompletions (four). He said it may have been the best he’s ever played.
He was brutally beaten down in his final game at New Orleans. But he’d already decided it was time to go.