MMQB (cont.)

This is the sign Kurt Warner saw as he drove away from the Cardinals facility Friday. Courtesy of Arizona Cardinals

Kurt, we hardly knew ye.

The five things I consider particularly amazing about the Kurt Warner Story:

1. It's the most amazing story in football in a half-century. I don't say that lightly. In 1955, Johnny Unitas, the fourth quarterback in Steelers training camp, was cut by Pittsburgh. He went home to Pittsburgh, worked a construction job, and played semipro football for $6 a game on the weekends. The Colts signed him in 1956. He was the NFL MVP in 1957. He piloted the Colts to a 23-17 overtime victory in the 1958 NFL Championship Game in what writers then and since have called the greatest pro football game ever played.

Warner, an undrafted free-agent in Packers camp in 1994, was cut by Green Bay and went to work for $5.50 an hour stocking shelves in a Cedar Falls, Iowa, grocery store. He bounced around Arena and pro football until earning the backup job in St. Louis in 1999, then ascending to the top job when Trent Green wrecked his knee in the final '99 preseason game. All Warner did was win the league MVP and lead his team to the Super Bowl title. Come to think of it, it might be crazier than Unitas' story.

2. The Rams never signed a veteran quarterback, like Jeff Hostetler, when Green went down. With their jobs on the line, coach Dick Vermeil and offensive coordinator Mike Martz stayed with the unknown, unproven Warner. "Dick looked around the [coaches meeting] room when it happened, and he said, 'Remember, all our jobs are resting on this decision,' '' Martz told me the other night. "But Dick loved him too. Dick thought he was special just like I did.''

That night, or soon thereafter, Martz had a conversation with a skeptical reporter about the decision to play Warner. "The guy said to me, 'How can you possibly think you can win with Kurt Warner?' I said to him, 'Well, we see him every day. We trust him. He can run our offense.' The guy kept going, and I finally, said, 'This discussion is ended.' We just trusted Kurt.''

3. As quickly as he came, he just as quickly vanished. From 2002 to 2006, a five-year window, he was brittle and seemed to fall to earth. With the Giants and Cards, he seemed to settle into a nice little backup role. But inside he seethed and wouldn't accept being relegated to second-string. I call it the five-year Donut Hole in the middle of his career.

4. As quickly as he vanished, he just as quickly climbed to the top of the football world again. Warner won the starting Cardinal quarterback job to the shock of many ... because he beat out bonus-baby and high first-round pick Matt Leinart for the job. And he quite nearly led the Cards to their first Super Bowl win.

5. Two rotten franchises, the Rams and Cards. Two makeover jobs. Quickly. Both led by Warner.

Lucky break number one came in the form of an injury.

"I'll never forget when Trent got hurt,'' Warner said by phone Friday, after his retirement news conference. "There was a lot of emotion, a lot of fear, in the locker room because of the way Trent was playing. He was so well thought of by the guys in the locker room, everyone felt awful for him. But for me, as unfortunate as it was for him, it was the opportunity that comes sometimes in football when you least expect it. It was the chance I'd been waiting for my whole life -- to be able to start for a team in the NFL. Now I could never say anymore, 'Nobody ever gave me a chance.' Now I was going to know if I could really do it or not.

"What was perfect for me was that Mike [Martz] drew the game up exactly the way I always wanted to play football -- with a lot of quick decisions to be made. He wanted to play decisively, not be afraid to make decisions and live with them. And I had the great toys at my disposal in that offense. I played exactly the way the offense was drawn up by Mike. It was a perfect marriage.''

Lucky break number two came because Arizona coach Ken Whisenhunt did exactly what he said he was going to do in 2008 -- he played the best player in training camp between Warner and Leinart.

"No question I was skeptical I'd get the job,'' Warner said. "I'd heard it before -- the best man will win -- but sometime it hadn't happened. Here, I knew without a doubt I was the best man for the job. That's not a cut on Matt [Leinart]. And it wasn't a cut on Eli [Manning] when I was with the Giants. But I felt like there were times in my career where it didn't matter what I did, I wasn't going to get the job. And when Coach Whisenhunt called me into the office and gave me the news I'd be starting ... I don't want to say I was shocked, but I knew I was in the right place. I was playing for a coach who thought outside the box. He was willing to follow his gut.''

Players need coaches to show faith in them. Coaches need players who reward their faith.

"I knew we had something great,'' said Martz. "I'll never forget a pass Kurt threw against the Giants. It was about third-and-15. He was back to pass, and a tackle and linebacker came free. They were inches from hitting him. It's a sack. Easy sack. Kurt's got Isaac Bruce in the middle of a route and throws to the exact spot where he'd be cutting, like five yards down the field. The second Isaac turns his head on the cut, the ball's on him. Just about right on his helmet. First down. Kurt just raised the standard for everything we did.''

There's a special place in football lore for Warner. And there's a special place in football history for a player who came out of nowhere and ran an offense no one could stop for three years -- and had a two-year career rebirth when he was almost as great. He was a meteor across the NFL sky. Twice.

***

One last Warnerism: The three best throws of his career.

Ten years and one week ago, Warner made the throw he'll always remember. Taking you inside the three plays that will never leave him:

1. Jan. 23, 2000, NFC Championship Game. Rams 11, Bucs 6. Trailing 6-5 with five minutes left, the heavily favored Rams were at the Buc 30. Nothing was working. Tampa Bay was beating the tar out of St. Louis. All week, instead of the regular sight-adjusts the receivers would make in their patterns depending on what the defense did, Martz had the wideouts run deep. But now, late in the game, the Rams just needed to move the ball downfield, at least into guaranteed field-goal range. As Warner left the huddle, he and Ricky Proehl had a quick moment together, and Proehl wanted to know if the sight-adjusts would be the usual go-patterns. "Ricky and I said, 'Let's just leave it on. Let's go for all the marbles.' The Bucs had great coverage, but Proehl made a circus catch on the side of the end zone. Touchdown. Ballgame.

2. Jan. 30, 2000, Super Bowl. Rams 23, Titans 16. Rams up 16-0. Titans score 16 unanswered points. Two minutes left. Warner rears back and fires a bomb, perfectly placed into Isaac Bruce's hands, up the right sideline, for a 73-yard touchdown.

3. Feb. 1, 2009, Super Bowl. Steelers 27, Cardinals 23. "This throw will be etched in my mind forever,' he said. Trailing 20-16, Fitzgerald bisected two Steelers defensive backs, was perfectly led by Warner in the middle of the field, and gamboled for a 64-yard go-ahead touchdown. If not for Ben Roethlisberger's length-of-the-field drive and Santonio Holmes' great catch in the corner of the end zone, the Fitzgerald catch might have usurped the first one in Warner lore.

***

A tree grows in Philly.

Chances are you don't know Howie Roseman. Neither do I. He's a very persistent 34-year-old former cap guy for the Eagles, and he personifies the person I hear from 20 times a year, either in polite, long letters, e-mails or personal contact in airports or somewhere out in public. Roseman's the new Eagles general manager, and he's a walk-on. While a student at Florida, and later getting his law degree at Fordham, he pestered every NFL team with letters seeking employment. He'd do anything. Finally, president Joe Banner of the Eagles listened, saying he got letters from Roseman every day and hired him as a cap specialist in 2000. "Luckily,'' Roseman said, "I got into the business when the landscape was changing. I got to learn the business from the bottom up.''

Now, Roseman, who morphed into a personnel man and scout over the years, is going to have to prove a worker bee who's highly intelligent can run the football side of a team. Of course, in Philadelphia, running the football team as GM isn't the same as an all-powerful GM. Andy Reid runs most everything in Philadelphia, which I found out when I asked Roseman if he, like Reid, thinks Donovan McNabb will be quarterbacking the Eagles this fall.

"Coach speaks for all of us,'' he said. "I'm a Donovan McNabb fan.''

Said Roseman: "Andy doesn't care if you come from Mars. If you work hard, you can work for him.''

Let that be a message to you front-office wannabes. Now, about getting that foot in the door ....