I guess Bernie changed his tune.
**********************************
https://www.101sports.com/2017/02/06/kurt-warner-great-american-story-makes-pro-football-hall-fame/
Kurt Warner, The Great American Story, Makes It To the Pro Football Hall of Fame
By Bernie Miklasz/February 6, 2017
Saturday, the day before Super Bowl 51, I had the honor and privilege of advocating the candidacy of retired St. Louis Rams and Arizona Cardinals quarterback KurtWarner for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The annual selection meeting was held in Houston at the Super Bowl media center. We began at 7:00 a.m. and didn’t finish until nearly 4 p.m.
It was a happy day for me. Warner is a Hall of Fame quarterback. His career warranted selection, and he undoubtedly would have made it at some point. But this is a complicated process, and I was pleased to have a chance to address the other selectors and explain why Warner deserved the most prestigious lifetime honor an NFL player can dream of.
I’m going to share my Warner presentation with you here today.
Here’s what I had to say in the room:
When I reflect on Kurt Warner, the one word I keep coming back to is perseverance …
I think of his personal character…
Warner was a wonderful talent, but his incredible journey wasn’t made on talent alone…
Warner played at a small school, started only one season, and went un-drafted. He was a camp arm, cut by Green Bay … he couldn’t find a job right away except working for minimum wage at the HyVee supermarket … he kept going …
...met Brenda, his future wife, and stepped up to adopt her two children, including a son, Zach, who suffered brain damage in an accident early in his life, before Kurt entered Brenda’s life … Brenda and Kurt experienced tragedy when her parents were killed in a tornado … every day was a test of character, but Warner kept going …
The Arena Football League… NFL Europe … a backup to Tony Banks in St. Louis…
He barely made the Rams roster in 1998 … the Rams didn’t protect him in the Cleveland Browns’ expansion draft following the 1998 season; the Browns passed on Warner and he stayed with the Rams…
Warner kept going until he finally got his chance, in the summer of 1999 when the Rams lost starter Trent Green for the season with a knee injury. Even then, the Rams had some doubts of Kurt’s readiness and considered pursuing of Jeff Hostetler, who had recently announced his retirement. Finally the Rams’ coaches agreed: they would put their trust in Warner.
As we like to say, the rest is history …
In his first three seasons: two league MVP awards, two division titles, three straight trips to the playoffs, two NFC championships, a Super Bowl ring, and a Super Bowl MVP award.
The guy — “Kurt Who?” — came out of nowhere to win the league MVP, the Super Bowl and the Super Bowl MVP in his first NFL season.
Warner was the conductor of the Greatest Show on Turf, putting up huge passing numbers as the quarterback of the first team in league history to score 500+ plus points in three consecutive seasons.
He took hit after hit as he stood in the pocket, waiting for a receiver to clear, knowing he was about to get clobbered…
As retired safety Rodney Harrison said: “Kurt had the heart to stand in there and take every hard shot a defense could hit him with. I think of Kurt Warner and the word that comes to mind is courage.”
Said Jeff Fisher,speaking of Super Bowl 34, when the Rams beat his Tennessee Titans: “We brought the extra pass rushers all game, and the goal was to hit him as many times as possible. We cracked one of his ribs. Actually Kurt told me we broke two of his ribs.
As the game progressed, he looked worn down and was in obvious pain. We thought we’d gotten to him. And then Kurt takes a hellacious hit from Jevon Kearse as he throws a (winning) 73-yard touchdown pass to Isaac Bruce late in the game. We couldn’t break Kurt. He had one bullet left and got us.”
Warner paid a price for his courage …. his career went into a valley for a while, only because of concussions and a sequence of injuries to his right hand that weakened his grip on the football, which led to too many fumbles and decreased accuracy…
Everyone counted him out — me too.
The Rams benched and released Warner who bounced around to the Giants, the Cardinals, backing up young guns Eli Manning and Matt Leinart. Arizona…
This fairy tale of Kurt Warner … it was broken.
How many great players come back from a career crash?
How many quarterbacks with a bum throwing hand find a way to reverse a spiral?
Those words, again: Perseverance, character, resilience.
After raising the Titanic in St. Louis, lifting a chronic loser to a highly unlikely Super Bowl championship, Warner raised himself and a SECOND Titanic in Arizona. Going into 2008 the Cardinals had one postseason victory since 1947, but Warner beat all odds and brushed off the forecasts of his own demise and led Arizona to the Super Bowl.
This could be the most unique career in NFL history.
Let’s talk about the so-called “hole” in Warner’s career.
This wasn’t a hole — this was an injured quarterback who had absorbed a terrible beating while putting the team’s interests ahead of his own. Kurt didn’t shut it down, give in. He fought through the injuries and the adversity. He healed up, put on a glove to enhance his grip, and turned back the clock.
He had that rarity — a career Second Act — to make people smile and feel good about Kurt Warner all over again.
You see, this isn’t just a great
football story …
This isn’t just a great
sports story.
This is a great
American story.
Warner represents the virtues that every professional athlete should aspire to.
So instead of fretting over what Warner
didn’t do …
I suggest we focus on what he DID do after starting his first NFL game at the relatively old age 28 …
Consider:
- Warner has more career passing yards than 15 Hall of Fame quarterbacks…
- More touchdown passes than 13 Hall of Fame quarterbacks …
- Only one Hall of Fame quarterback, Steve Young, has a career passer rating better than Warner.
- Warner’s career average of 261 yards passing per regular season game ranks fifth in league history
- Warner’s postseason average of 304 yards passing per game is No.1 all-time.
- Warner’s career completion percentage, 65.5 percent is better than every quarterback enshrined in the Hall.
- His career mark of 7.9 yards per passing attempt ranks 6th in league history and is superior to that of 20 Hall of Fame quarterbacks.
- Kurt Warner is one of only nine players in NFL history to be named league MVP multiple times.
- He’s one of only five quarterbacks in league history to win regular-season MVP, a Super Bowl title and the Super Bowl MVP honor in the same season.
- Going into tomorrow’s New England vs. Atlanta game, Warner has the three highest passing yards totals in Super Bowl history.
- Warner’s postseason passer rating, 102.8, is second in league history to Bart Starr.
- Warner ranks first in NFL postseason history in career yards per attempt, and is second in completion percentage.
- He’s the only QB in NFL history to pass for more than 1,000 yards in two different postseasons.
- Only five NFL quarterbacks have more 300-yard passing games than Warner, who had 52. But there’s a difference: the other five quarterbacks made at least 230 starts — or more than double the number of Warner’s career NFL starts.
- Warner had 300+ plus yards in 45 percent of his career starts. That’s phenomenal.
- Warner and Peyton Manning are the only two quarterbacks in NFL history to throw for 14,000 yards with two different franchises.
- Warner, Manning and Fran Tarkenton are the only three QBs in league history to throw 100 touchdown passes for two different franchises.
- Warner, Manning and Craig Morton are the only three quarterbacks to lead two franchises to the Super Bowl.
- Kurt is one of only three NFL quarterbacks to rank in the top 10 career passer rating for the regular season and the postseason.
- In the modern era, 19 teams have scored 500+ points in a season, and Warner was the starting QB for three of them. quarterbacked three of them. That’s topped only by Tom Brady, who’s led the Patriots four seasons of 500+ points.
I could hit you with a lot more.
But the bottom line is this:
In his seven healthy seasons, Warner won two NFL MVP awards, was a multiple All-Pro selection and a four-time Pro Bowl pick, quarterbacked three NFC champions, played in three Super Bowls, won a Super Bowl, was a Super Bowl MVP, and owns the three highest passing-yards totals in Super Bowl history.
That’s more excellence packed into seven prime seasons than most quarterbacks could give you in 20 seasons. And we’re going to hold hand injuries against him? He couldn’t help it. He was hurt. But after climbing to the top of the mountain at age 28, and falling off a few years later, Warner took the long and hard road back and climbed the mountain again — appreciating the view from near the top at age 37.
It’s a remarkable career, and an example of all that is good in sports…
I humbly ask that we put Kurt Warner in Canton.
Postscript …
Late in Saturday’s selection meeting, when it was time to vote Yes or No on each of the five finalists, I grabbed my iPhone and snapped a photo of the Warner ballot just before turning it in. Why? Because I wanted to get it framed to put on my desk to remind me of the thrills and chills that came with watching Warner play for the Rams in his glory days here.
It was perhaps the most enjoyable experience of my column-writing career. But there was another reason: seeing that ballot will also remind me of Kurt Warner, the Hall of Fame person — one who very much remains inspirational in ways that have nothing to do with football.
Thanks for reading …
—Bernie
