John Lavallo of Takeoutmag.com writes that Cardinals’ veteran signal caller Kurt Warner gets no respect and delves into the discussion of whether or not he’s Hall of Fame-worthy (which many media members as Lavallo points out, do not believe so).
“Not a singular player in his era”.This is laughable. Let’s assume Warner’s “era” is the late 90’s and early 00’s (that’s sort of an era, I guess). In that time, what did our man do? Threw for nearly 14,000 yards (and another 15,000 yards since), completed nearly 70% of his passes, lead his team to three 500+ point seasons, made 4 Pro-Bowls, won 2 MVP’s, lead his team to 2 Super Bowls, won a championship, along with throwing 400+ yards and collecting an MVP trophy for Super Bowl XXXIV. Warner had the best 3-year stretch of any QB in NFL history. And since 1999 is smack dab in his era, let’s take specific notice of that year. Warner had the best single season of any QB in NFL history, not only because of eye-popping stats (41 TD’s, 4,300+ yards) but also because, unlike Dan Marino in 1984 and Tom Brady in 2007 (both of whom had technically superior seasons, stat-wise), Warner actually ended up winning his last game. In fact, he is only NFL quarterback to throw 40 touchdowns and win a Super Bowl in the same season. Remarkable stats AND a Super Bowl ring? Show me one other QB in one other year, or ANY era, that had a better season than Kurt Warner in 1999. I defy you. And I think Kurt’s era has a part 2 called the ‘late 00’s’, in which he has been the best QB in the NFL over the past 2 seasons (project out his stats from 2007, in which he only started 10 games yet threw for nearly 3,000 yards and add that to a 4,500+ yard 2008 season. Oh, and he led his team to the Super Bowl.
Lavallo touched on all of the arguments against Warner being a Hall of Famer, so make sure to check out the entire article.
I’ll chime in on this debate the same way I do all Hall of Fame discussions for active players: let’s wait until Warner’s done playing before we say whether he’s worthy of HOF consideration or not. That might be a cop-out, but he may win three more Super Bowls by the time his career is over with and then there wouldn’t much of a discussion, would there?
Either way, Warner is going to be a special case because he came back into the NFL with the Rams in ’99, set the league on fire and then damn near fell off the map. Now he’s back setting the league on fire and that’s why you have so many detractors and supporters. Yeah, he’s numbers are outstanding in the years he played well, but injuries made him look like Ryan Leaf for all the years in between. So again, let’s see how his career finishes out when we have the full picture.
