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Jan. 30, 2000 SportsLine wire reports |
Audio: Super Bowl MVP Kurt Warner says he always believed in himself Audio: Warner talks about the TD pass to Isaac Bruce
Kurt Warner's storybook season ended with the ultimate
exclamation point Sunday -- a record-breaking Super Bowl MVP performance.
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The quarterback who once tossed rolls of toilet paper around an Iowa supermarket, threw passes just as easily in the glare of pro football's most dramatic setting, picking apart Tennessee's secondary and leading the St. Louis Rams to the NFL championship, 23-16.
Warner completed 18 passes for 277 yards in the first half alone, with six straight completions in one drive, and set a Super Bowl halftime record for attempts with 35.
He constructed a 16-0 lead. Then, when Tennessee made a furious second-half comeback to tie the score, he won the game with a 73-yard touchdown pass to Isaac Bruce.
That gave him a record 414 yards for the game, breaking Hall of Famer Joe Montana's record of 357.
Warner was following in the Super Bowl successes of high profile passers such as Bart Starr, Roger Staubach, Terry Bradshaw and Joe Namath.
The difference was that those guys were future Hall of Famers, expected to produce championships for their teams. Warner came out of football's shadows to bring this one to the Rams, who had struggled through nine straight losing seasons before finding him almost by accident.
This was a success story almost too corny to be true.
After playing at Northern Iowa -- hardly a hotbed of NFL talent -- Warner spent three seasons on the outskirts of pro football with the Iowa Barnstormers of the fringe Arena Football League, and one more in NFL Europe with the Amsterdam Admirals.
He was a backup with the Rams, an insurance policy that St. Louis cashed in when $16.5 million free agent Trent Green was injured in training camp. And suddenly, the anonymous quarterback blossomed into a full-fledged NFL star.
Warner directed a high-powered St. Louis attack to a 13-3 season, setting a team record for passing yards with 4,353 and throwing 41 touchdown passes. He joined Dan Marino as the only player in NFL history to throw 40 or more TDs in a season.
He was the regular season MVP, a most unlikely candidate for the award, given his humble football roots. A year ago, he said, even he wouldn't have dreamed of this.
"At the time, it wasn't very realistic to think I'd be the starter in the Super Bowl," Warner said. "They were trying to figure out if I was good enough to be the backup.
"I always believed in myself. There were no doubts that if I ever got the opportunity, that I could be successful. I continued to believe that through the times I worked in the supermarket and the times I played in Arena Football. I never lost sight of that. To me, that's what it's all about -- believing in yourself, waiting for that opportunity and then seizing it when it came.
"I was just hoping I would get an opportunity throughout the season to play and to show people what I could do."
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| Super Bowl MVP Kurt Warner has come a long way from his days as a supermarket worker.(AP) |
And that turned out to be plenty.
His performance bordered on startling. He led the league with a quarterback rating of 109.2 and gave every longshot football player the hope that someday he could duplicate this kind of unexpected success.
For Warner, it was no surprise.
"I just went out and did what I expected myself to do from day one, things I've been doing for the last few years," he said. "It just happens that some people who hadn't seen me do it, got to see me do it this year."
And on Sunday he did it in pro football's top showcase.
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