Kurt Warner Announces Retirement

Kurt Warner walked to the podium Friday afternoon announcing to the world his plans to retire from the NFL. This wasn’t a long-drawn out process of “Will he retire or won’t he?” like the Brett Favre saga, but the press conference was a fitting end to a fairy-tale career.

The story of Kurt Warner is one of folk-lore, playing three seasons in the now extinct Arena Football League; working at a local grocery store in Iowa, and then eventually leading two dead-beat franchises to prominence. But, what Kurt Warner showed in his press conference and throughout his career was, it wasn’t about him. Many people would’ve milked the story of grocery-bagger turned NFL superstar into a million-dollar motion picture. Kurt Warner didn’t do that, and maybe that’s what Warner realized which younger quarterbacks today don’t. Every snap could’ve been his last, Warner saw how far he’d come from his days of stocking shelves in Iowa, and knew how easy the NFL could simply send him right back. Besides his ridiculously accurate passing and love of the deep-ball, he played with a chip on his shoulder like a man carrying a cardboard box full of chips to stock.

Kurt Warner came into NFL stardom in a seemingly fitting-unlikely way, which is what his career in a nutshell was, unlikely. Signed on as the St. Louis Rams back-up quarterback, Kurt Warner witnessed an event which would change his life and the course of the NFL forever. The starting QB at the start of the 1999 NFL season, for the St. Louis Rams was Trent Green, who came in ready to lead a laughing-stock of a franchise. In a twisted chain of events, Trent Green was lost for the season due to injury in a pre-season game vs. the San Diego Chargers. The rest is literally NFL (record) history; Warner stepped in to his starting role and led the “Greatest Show on Turf” (Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce, and Torry Holt) to a NFL championship and a 1999 NFL MVP Award. Everything seemed to be going picture-perfect for Warner, as he also won the 2001 MVP and led the Rams once again to the SuperBowl and in an ironic turn of events lost to a team that lost it’s starting Quarterback for the season and was replaced by an unsung 7^th round back-up (Tom Brady.)

The following season found Warner seemingly on the “downside” of his career, due to injuries and the play of young Marc Bulger, Kurt Warner lost his job and found is way out of St. Louis. He eventually signed on with the New York Giants, and found himself being the veteran quarterback who could mentor the Giants prized draft pick, Eli Manning. Kurt Warner never truly found his footing as the quarterback of the Giants, and just like in St. Louis was eventually replaced by the youthful Eli Manning.

On the last legs of his sudden rise to fame, Warner landed in Glendale, Arizona.  Yet again, Warner found himself again mentoring another future franchise quarterback, Matt Leinart. Instead of his two previous stops where the old veteran quarterback was replaced by the young hot-shot quarterback, Warner found himself with the tables turned. Due to struggling and inconsistent play from Matt Leinart, Ken Whisenhunt made the bold decision to replace Leinart with Kurt Warner. This decision changed the destiny of another door-mat franchise, and just like the St. Louis Rams, eventually ended in a trip to the Super Bowl. With amazing wide-receivers who could compliment Warner’s passing skills and accuracy, Warner seemingly was able to re-create the “Greatest Show on Turf” with another NFC West team. In a division that had been dominated by every team except the Arizona Cardinals, it was truly a testament of Kurt Warner’s ability to take any situation bad or good, and in true Kurt Warner fashion, turn it into a success story.

Now with Kurt Warner’s retirement set in stone, the only talk left about Warner’s career will be whether he is a Hall-of-Fame candidate. The numbers speak for themselves, two Most Valuable Player awards, the only quarterback besides Craig Morton to lead two different NFL Franchises to the Super Bowl, and a 65.4% completion rate, which is good for second highest in NFL History.

Besides all the accolades and the story book rise to stardom, Kurt Warner never got too big of an ego, which seemingly infects every big time NFL star. His press conference embodied everything he was to the NFL, a man that truly realized how lucky he was to have the chance to play and star in a league all children idolize growing up to be in.

Standing tall in front of the room full of reporters, Warner didn’t talk about all his achievements and how he took two franchises to the peak of the NFL mountain top. He merely flashed the spotlight on his family, "Every day I come home and it doesn't matter if you won or lost or have thrown touchdowns or interceptions, the one thing that I always knew is that when I entered that door, when I stepped in our house, that none of that mattered to these guys," he said. "I can't tell you how much of a blessing that is."