Kurt Warner

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Kurtis Eugene Warner (born June 22, 1971 in Burlington, Iowa) is an American football quarterback, currently playing for the Arizona Cardinals of the NFL.

Warner is best known for his stint with the St. Louis Rams between the 1999 and 2001 NFL seasons, culminating in two MVP awards and a championship in Super Bowl XXXIV.

Contents

1 Childhood & Early Career
2 NFL career
3 Struggling
4 Done in St. Louis
5 Arizona Cardinals
6 Trivia
7 External links

Childhood & Early Career

Warner's story is considered one of the most inspirational in the history of American sports. He grew up in an abusive family situation and, after years of anonymity and tribulation, he had a brief stint as a top flight NFL quarterback. Warner studied and played football at Regis High School (now Xavier High School) in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and went on to do the same at University of Northern Iowa. During college, he met his future wife Brenda (who also grew up in an abusive family situation and had an abusive previous marriage), whom he married in 1997 and adopted her two children, son Zachary & daughter Jesse. Jesse attends the local high school in Scottsdale, Arizona, Saguaro high school They also have 5 children of their own: sons Elijah and Kade, daughter Jada, and twin girls Sierra Rose and Sienna Rae born in December 2005. Warner and Brenda are both born-again Christians.

After college, he attended the Green Bay Packers training camp in 1994, but was released from the team. Later he worked at the Cedar Falls Hy-Vee Food Store stocking shelves before being signed by the Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena Football League, in 1995. Warner was named to the AFL's All-Arena First Team in 1996 and 1997 as he led the Barnstormers to ArenaBowl appearances in both seasons.

NFL career

Warner came out of nowhere to take the NFL by storm in 1999

Warner left the Barnstormers to sign with the NFL's St. Louis Rams in 1998, and was allocated to the Amsterdam Admirals of the NFL Europe.

Warner was the backup quarterback for the St. Louis Rams during the preseason of the 1999-2000 season. When the starting quarterback, Trent Green, was injured in the preseason, Warner took over as the starter. Ironically, coach Dick Vermeil was not very happy or confident about putting in Warner as the starter and would not have done so if the more experienced backup quarterback Paul Justin had not been injured. In fact, at a press conference, Vermeil said that he was hoping Warner could hold the team together and win a game or two while they waited for Justin to be ready to play. Of course, Warner proved Vermeil wrong about his concerns. The accurate-throwing Warner, running back Marshall Faulk, and wide receivers Isaac Bruce and Torry Holt were part of the high-scoring offense nicknamed "The Greatest Show on Turf." Warner's magical season, in which he tossed a staggering 41 touchdown passes, is regarded as one of the top seasons by a quarterback in NFL history. Warner became the symbol of the Rams' giant turn-around in 1999. The offense registered the first in a string of 3 consecutive 500 point seasons, an NFL record.

In the NFL playoffs, Warner led the St. Louis Rams to a Super Bowl XXXIV victory against the Tennessee Titans. He threw for a record 414 passing yards and 2 touchdowns, including a 73 yard touchdown strike to Bruce when the game was tied with just over 2 minutes to play. He was Super Bowl MVP in 1999, becoming one of the select few to win both the League MVP and Super Bowl MVP in the same year. The others are Bart Starr in 1966, Terry Bradshaw in 1978, Joe Montana in 1989, Emmitt Smith in 1993, Steve Young in 1994. Warner also set a Super Bowl record in the game by throwing 45 passes without a single interception.

Warner started the 2000 season red-hot, racking up 300 or more passing yards in each of his first 6 games (tying Steve Young's record) and posting 19 touchdown passes in that stretch. Also in 2000, former St. Louis Offensive Coordinator Mike Martz replaced the retired Dick Vermeil as Rams' head coach. Their relationship would start off warm (like that between Warner and Vermeil) and would remain that way for the next few years. Warner broke his hand and missed the middle of the 2000 campaign, but Trent Green was able to step in and the Warner/Green duo led the Rams to the highest team passing yard total in NFL history, with 5,232 net yards. Warner and Green's combined gross passing yard total was 5,492, which if held by only one, would easily surpass 5,084 yards, the single-season record set by Dan Marino. For the first time in his short career, though, Warner showed a disturbing tendency to lock onto receivers and force turnovers; he threw an interception in 5.2% of his passing attempts (18 int in 347 attempts). Still, an injured Warner was one of the most formidable passers in the NFL. Due to a very poor defensive unit, though, the Rams were eliminated from the playoffs in the Wild Card round despite one of the most productive offensive years by a team ever. In response to the poor defensive performance, nine of the Rams' eleven defensive starters would be cut during the offseason, as St. Louis reloaded for another Super Bowl run.

Warner quickly returned to form in the 2001 season. Though his season lagged behind his fantastic 1999, Warner still turned heads, amassing 36 TD passes and 4,800 passing yards, a total second only to Dan Marino all-time, but lacked the accuracy he showed in 1999 by throwing 22 interceptions. Warner led the "Greatest Show on Turf" to a 14-2 record and returned the Rams to the Super Bowl in 2002, though the team lost to the New England Patriots on a last-second Adam Vinatieri field goal. For the second time, he was named the league's Most Valuable Player, but fans will always look at Super Bowl XXXVI as the moment when Warner's career began to go downhill. Still, he had a fairly good performance in the game, throwing for 365 yards and a touchdown, with 2 interceptions, while also scoring a rushing touchdown on the ground. His 365 passing yards were the second highest total in Super Bowl history behind his own record in Super Bowl XXXIV.

Going into 2002, pundits felt that Warner's Super Bowl XXXVI loss was an aberration, but observers noticed a distinct loss of velocity on Warner's throws in the 2002 preseason. Warner went 0-6 as a starter to begin the regular season, again turning over the ball with interceptions on 5% of his passing attempts. On September 29, 2002, Warner broke his right pinkie finger, effectively ending his season. Having entered the year with a 103.4 career passer rating, Warner posted a minuscule 67.4 rating in 2002. Meanwhile, Warner's understudy, Marc Bulger, looked like the Warner of old: accurate, quick to read coverages, and deadly in the red zone.

Struggling

Naturally, controversy brewed in St. Louis after the season over which QB should lead the Rams in 2003. Martz stood by the erstwhile Warner despite fans' calls to replace him with Bulger — and an embarrassing situation in which Warner's wife, Brenda, called a local radio station to complain that the Rams organization and Martz did not provide Warner sufficient medical care when his hand was broken. In fact, Brenda stated that she (as a registered nurse) was the one who told Warner he had to go to an orthopedist and get a second opinion. These actions led to a major controversy that Warner had to play down. Nonetheless, Martz supported Warner and gave him the first start of 2003, against the New York Giants. Warner struggled, fumbling six times, throwing an interception, and it was later learned that he had played the game with a concussion. Even though Warner declared the next week that the concussion was a minor one and he was fine--an opinion also backed up by the medical staff-- he would not see the field again until the final game of the season, while in between Bulger again put up decent numbers (22 touchdowns, but also 22 interceptions). Fans and experts continue to debate the decision to start Bulger. The pro-Warner side of this debate argues that despite an on-going controversy all year and a playoff loss with three interceptions by Bulger, Martz simply made it clear that this time there would be no controversy: Warner was definitely the odd man out. The other side, which tends not to be pro-Bulger or anti-Warner, argues that Warner was not benched because of the Giants game alone (in spite of Martz's vocal support for him in the off-season). Rather, the Giants game was just one more in a series of struggles going back to the 2002 season. This side argues that for whatever reasons, Warner's play had declined in St. Louis (including an increasing propensity for untimely turnovers), that he had lost the team, and that at best only a change of team could resurrect his fortunes. Parenthetically, it might be added that years later it is possible to argue that both sides had a point. Warner did improve his play after switching teams and getting a fresh start (witness his play in Arizona), while Bulger's play during the 2004 season (in spite of a shakey offensive line and a declining defense) exonerated the decision to start him.

Done in St. Louis

After two injury-riddled seasons in 2002 and 2003, during which Bulger established himself as the Rams' starter, the Rams released Warner for salary cap reasons on June 1, 2004. Two days later, he signed a two-year deal to be the quarterback for the New York Giants. Ironically, it was largely Warner's performance against the Giants in the 2003 season opener, in which he lost much of his credibility by fumbling six times, one shy of an NFL record, that cost him his job with the Rams. Warner later revealed that he had played in St. Louis with a slight fracture of his right hand that never fully healed stemming from his broken pinkie finger of 2002, and that made it difficult to hold onto the ball or throw it with the same range of motion than he did in his MVP years.

Warner started the 2004 season as the Giants' starting quarterback, winning five of the first seven games, but following a short losing streak, rookie Eli Manning was given the starting job and Warner was again relegated to the bench. Coach Tom Coughlin later stated that he regretted starting Warner and should have played Manning from the start in order to give him experience and build his confidence. The Giants were five and four at the time, and an eight and eight record would have gotten them into the playoffs. After the 2004 season, Warner was still the NFL's all-time leader in passer rating and completion percentage, though he had not taken nearly the number of snaps as other quarterbacks on the list.

Arizona Cardinals

In early 2005, Warner signed a one-year, $4 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals, and was quickly named the starter by coach Dennis Green. However, Warner struggled and posted three very mediocre games before injuring his groin and being replaced by former starter Josh McCown. McCown played in two games in which he had terrific numbers, and Green and the Cardinals faced a quarterback controversy of their own. Given the fact that Warner had not won a single game as a Cardinal, and that McCown was leading the Cardinals to wins, Green named McCown the starter and relegated Warner to the backup role. The change in Warner's status led many sports analysts (including Marino) to conclude that Warner's days of being a starting quarterback in the NFL were over. But after McCown struggled in two straight games, Green re-inserted Warner into the starting lineup. After playing fairly well in two losses (including passing for a total of nearly 700 yards), Warner proved he could still be successful by defeating his former team, the Rams, 38-28, in St. Louis. He passed for 285 yards, three touchdowns, and posted a quarterback rating of 115.9 for the game. For his efforts, he was named NFC FedEx Express player of the week. Warner's season ended in week 15, when he injured his knee and an MRI revealed that he had a partial tear of the MCL. As of the start of the 2006 season, Warner remains the most accurate quarterback in NFL history, with a career completion percentage of 65.7. Kurt Warner, following his first season as a Cardinal, signed a 3 year contract extension in the off season for a reported figure of $18 million.

On April 29, 2006, the Arizona Cardinals selected University of Southern California's 2004 Heisman Trophy Winner Matt Leinart with the 10th overall pick, calling into question Warner's future in Arizona. Dennis Green has said that he hopes Leinart doesn't take a snap at all this year, as he wants a healthy Warner to lead the potentially high-octane offense deep into the playoffs. Warner's future will depend on injury and production in 2006.

Trivia

Warner's number 13 was retired by the Iowa Barnstormers during halftime of a 2000 home game against the Tampa Bay Storm.
Warner's number 13 was retired by the Amsterdam Admirals before the 2003 season started.
Warner's number was actually 12 in high school, as his favorite quarterback growing up was Roger Staubach.
Warner chose the number 13, as a friend of his, Jonathan Keenum, told him that people consider 13 unlucky, but he (Warner) can prove them wrong.#redirect

External links

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