Warner's Story Bigger Than Hall of Fame

TAMPA, Fla. -- Why be shortsighted about this? If the issue is whether Kurt Warner belongs in the Hall of Fame, why restrict him to a round building in Ohio with a football popping out the roof? How about Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum? The Louvre and the Smithsonian? The Hy-Vee Supermarkets Aisle of Fame? I'd even propose a lifetime Good Husband medal for a man so devoted to his wife, he just broke the record for most postgame tears spilled in her honor.

That mark previously belonged to Rod Tidwell. The fact he played fictitiously in Jerry Maguire for the Arizona Cardinals, the perfect farcical organization for the Tom Cruise-as-sports-agent movie, supplies even more evidence that Warner has cracked the code for Canton and other immortality shrines. Not only has he fashioned the all-time, bags-to-riches, can't-be-duplicated, beyond-hallucinatory fairy tale, he has done so while reviving two dubious, downtrodden franchises: the Cardinals and St. Louis Rams.

We know about his original miracle -- toiling with the Arena League's Iowa Barnstormers, bagging and stocking groceries as a second job for $5.50 an hour, using food stamps to survive, then exploding in a meteor shower to become a Super Bowl champion and two-time MVP of the National Football League. In and of itself, that story is preposterously beautiful.

But to return almost a decade later with an equally improbable addendum, after he repeatedly was benched and injured and told he was a washed-up goat who threw too many interceptions and fumbled too much?

Please, these things simply don't happen in life without screenwriters and a production company. I don't care what happened between Super Bowl XXXIV in Atlanta and Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa, where the Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers begin work today. As far as the Hall is concerned, Warner had me at "hut, hut" in the NFC title game -- when he climaxed a 14-play, 72-yard drive with a touchdown pass to Tim Hightower, which put the long-tragicomic Cardinals in the big game for the first time and made hell freeze over in the Sonoran Desert.

"I'm still shaking my head -- like, man, it really happened," Warner said.

It did. And the biggest debate you'll hear this week (along with which player is dumb enough to visit the world-famous Mons Venus strip club) is Warner's Hall candidacy as it pertains to his remarkable journey. His coach, Ken Whisenhunt, certainly supports the concept.

"Absolutely," he told reporters. "Being a two-time MVP, winning a Super Bowl, getting two teams there, and being able to come back and play at a high level and get this team there makes him a Hall of Fame player. My answer is definitely yes." Want more lobbying? Joe Montana, merely the greatest quarterback ever, calls Warner "a shoo-in."


Not every Hall inductee must have a perfect, bookend-to-bookend career. In Warner's case, the enormity of his trail -- the initial perseverance, the hardships after his major success, his from-the-ashes resurrection in Phoenix -- outweighs career statistical totals that obviously can't approach those of Brett Favre, Dan Marino and John Elway. Skeptics say Warner is only 38th all-time with 28,591 passing yards (Favre has 65,127) and 40th with 182 touchdown passes (Favre has 464).

Sports Illustrated's Peter King, the most influential football writer in the land, insists Warner isn't a "singular player in his era" because he has produced only five outstanding seasons in 10 years. He raves about two eras of "Great Kurt," but he bemoans mid-career struggles in which Warner started only 31 times in five years and averaged five TD passes and six interceptions a season. "Would my opinion change if Warner, who will be 38 on opening day 2009, won a third MVP?" King writes. "Or if he won a second Super Bowl with a second team? It very well could. Let's see what the future brings."

I will counter thusly: Warner's career is too uniquely magical to be judged by the usual yardsticks. He shouldn't be overly penalized for injuries, including hand and thumb problems that complicated ball maintenance -- when healthy, he has produced immaculate results in several categories: second all-time with a 65.4 completion percentage, third all-time with a 93.8 passer rating, third all-time with 7.11 yards per pass attempt and more than 300 passing yards in 46 percent of his games, by far the most ever. In the postseason, Warner has a 97.3 career passing rating, which is better than Montana's and falls short of only Bart Starr's 104.8. His postseason record is 8-2.

All of which feeds a transcendent statement, one grander than football, that must be preserved for generations to come. If and when my grandkids visit the Hall of Fame, I want them to see Warner's bust and know about his story. It will help if he plays a couple of more seasons and adds to his totals, something he and the Cardinals should want dearly with the phenomenal Larry Fitzgerald in the house. But even if this is a brief Warner renaissance, he has convinced me of his Canton worth. Not that he's wrapped up in the discourse.

"They can debate all they want," Warner said. "I'm just in the Super Bowl again. I like that."

He won't say it, but winning a second NFL championship surely would create a Mount Rushmore effect among the doubters. Warner will spend much of the week counseling his teammates about the Super Bowl experience. "It's crazy. The more uptight you get with it, the less you enjoy it, the harder it is for you to prepare," he said. "Embrace it. Enjoy every minute. Stay loose. If you don't want to sign autographs, stay in your room. Don't let it become a burden. Understand how big of a blessing it is."

And to think Warner would be home now, maybe pondering retirement, if Matt Leinart wasn't so unprepared and immature. Whisenhunt and offensive coordinator Todd Haley had been prepping the former Heisman Trophy winner as their QB-in-waiting, but between inconsistency on the field and beer-bonging and hot-tubbing off the field, Leinart wasn't ready to step in. A competition was held in the preseason, with Haley urging Warner to protect the football if he wanted the job. He did just that -- and Leinart did not. The rest is part of the Warner legend.

"For a veteran not to be named the starter for this season had to be very difficult. But there was never any complaint," Whisenhunt said. "All he said was that he wanted an opportunity. He got that, and he took advantage of it. Kurt really worked on a lot of things with his game, from moving in the pocket to protecting the football. He does things a lot of older quarterbacks don't want to do, and that's a credit to his humility, his competitive drive -- and it's the reason we are here today."


Ah, his competitive drive. Warner heard declarations of his football death and derived motivation from it. "I think, being in my situation, I've had a number of people who seemed to indicate, 'He played great for so long and now he doesn't have it anymore,' " he said. "You sit back and you think, 'I didn't lose anything. I can still play the same way.' My strengths I had in St. Louis are the same ones I have right now. You don't ever forget how to play the game."

Nor, it turns out, was he a fluke who thrived in Mike Martz's "Greatest Show on Turf" act in St. Louis. "It's definitely gratifying any time somebody says you can't do it, or maybe you were never that good, you were the product of a system," Warner said. "I get satisfaction in that I've helped organizations turn the corner in some degree. Everybody knows the (failure) stigma of Arizona."

Now that he has turned the stigma into a revelation, Warner wants to sign a contract extension with the Cardinals. He even issued an ultimatum of sorts: "I don't really want to go anywhere else and try to re-establish myself or have to go through the whole rebuilding process and move the family," he said. "I want to be here if I continue to play."

As Tidwell would say, show him the money. My expectation is, they will.

Whatever the future holds, Warner's place in sports lore is intact. From Hy-Vee to the highest perch of his sport, he has refused to let anyone or anything break his will. "It's been a journey," he said. "It's hard to put into words. It's amazing."

Imagine the words we'll use if he wins Sunday.