Going out in style....

It's official. Kurt is walking away from the game but I am pretty sure he won't be going back to stocking groceries. No, this sure bet Hall of Famer bowed out in style yesterday and it is well worth looking back on his movie-script career.
It's worth coming clean a little here: it took me a LONG time to warm up to football. I went to a high school without a football program, I was a basketball fan, and chess was about as athletic as I got. When the Oilers stadium debate came to a vote in Nashville, everyone in my family (except my sister who was a big football fan at the time, remember this was still when Peyton was gunslinging for Phil Fulmer) was opposed to allocating money for an NFL team. And even when the Oil...ne "Titans" began their incredible run for the Vince Lombardi trophy in early 2000, I was still skeptical. I remember distinctly the night of the Music City Miracle game. I was washing dishes at the cafe I worked at, waiting for my relief to come in, who was an hour late because he was actually AT THE GAME!
Anyway, point is, the first football game I ever actually watched on tv was Super Bowl 34...oh sorry Roman Empire enthusiasts, "XXXIV". And what a heartbreak Kurt Warner and the Rams delivered to us up in Nashville, although to be fair, the lethal injection was really delivered by Mike Jones. That was a tough end to the 2000 postseason for Titans fans, but recently I went back and watched clips of the game online, and what struck me ten years later is just how amazing Kurt Warner was. Few people have ever deserved a game MVP award more.
Do you know you holds the NFL record for most passing yards in a Super Bowl? Kurt Warner. You know who holds the second place record? Kurt Warner. How bout third place? Yep. Pretty amazing. Kurt Warner played in three Super Bowls, and he holds passing yard records for all three of them.
This is a guy who competed with Brett Favre for a quarterback spot with Green Bay, but he was released from training camp before the 1994 season started. Then he went back to Iowa and started stocking groceries. Then came the Arena League, where he became a star player for the Iowa Barnstormers. Then he did a stint with the NFL Europe and the Amsterdam Admirals. Even after being finally signed to the Saint Louis Rams, he spent a season as a third string quarter back and went into the 1999 season as a second stringer. People just did not believe this guy was NFL material.
Of course, Warner got his chance to start after Trent Green tore his ACL, and the rest is history, with Warner leading the Rams to a victory in the next Super Bowl. Pretty inspiring story.
Yet there was much more to follow. Warner led the Rams to another Super Bowl, where they fell to the emerging Brady/Belichick dynasty (audible groan inserted here). Then he did a stint with the Giants, before going to the Cardinals. And even though it looked like USC star Matt Leinart was going to take the head quarter back job away from Warner in 2007, ol' Kurt taught the Young Gun a thing or two over the next couple of seasons, earning his starting position back. Under Warner's leadership, the Cardinals made it all the way to Super Bowl 43 and within five points of a victory over the Steelers.
Speaking of Leinart, I wonder how Kurt felt watching a surreal reenactment of the 2006 Rose Bowl finale last November from the sidelines. Hmmm.
I am not gonna do any serious Peyton knocking here, but at least Kurt didn't do an Oreo commercial. And I love Brett Favre, but come on, when you retire, OWN IT! I don't think Kurt and I would ever be on the same side of a political argument, but the guy played heroic football. Like Favre, he made it pretty easy to cheer on whatever team he was gunning for. I am gonna miss him.