Former Ram Marshall Faulk ‘pissed off’ Warner didn’t get Hall of Fame nod

CHICAGO - Kurt Warner's legendary story from grocery-store clerk to Super Bowl MVP nearly landed the Cedar Rapids Regis graduate in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

Warner was named a Hall finalist and survived the first cut from 15 to 10 candidates in January, but he was eliminated in the final cutdown to five. While in Chicago on Wednesday as part of NFL Network's draft coverage, Warner described the Hall of Fame discussion as an honor. His former St. Louis Rams teammate, Hall of Fame running back Marshall Faulk, vouched strongly for the quarterback who bagged the three highest passing outputs in Super Bowl history.

'Without a doubt,” Faulk replied when asked if Warner was a Hall of Famer. 'Those awards and stuff like that, I'm not going to say they don't mean that much to him, but he just doesn't take it personal. But to me I was actually pissed off. I was pissed off. I've got four guys (former teammates) sitting there ready to go into the Hall of Fame and you mean to tell me none of them are first ballot?

'It's the usual thing. How do you get in? What the hell are the criteria? What the hell do you have to do? Because Kurt's numbers in his career and what he did, what's the difference between him and Steve Young? I don't see much. I was pissed off. I was pissed off and surprised at the same time.”

Warner finished his career with 32,344 yards and 208 touchdowns and 128 interceptions in 116 starts. Young, who was enshrined in his first year of eligibility in 2005, started 143 games with 33,124 yards, 232 touchdowns and 107 interceptions. Warner started three Super Bowls, while Young started one. Both claimed Super Bowl MVP trophies and each were tabbed first-team All-Pro at least twice.

'To simply to be in that conversation, with all the steps I had to go through to get there, by no means will I ever let - if I don't get into the Hall of Fame - it would be a negative of any sort,” Warner said. 'To be in the Hall of Fame conversation ... that to me is such a tremendous honor. It just helps me to reflect and humbles me to realize the people that helped me along the way and the situations that I was able to be in, the success that I had, everything is just a bonus at this point.”

Warner, 43, stays busy since retiring from the Arizona Cardinals in early 2010. He and his family continue to live in Arizona, where he coaches his sons' football team and commutes to Los Angeles for NFL Network duties. This offseason he traveled to Seattle to watch Northern Iowa compete in the NCAA tournament and mentored San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. This weekend, Warner will return to Eastern Iowa to help with Habitat for Humanity.

He stays busy, but not overwhelmed. That's just the way he likes it.

'I didn't really know what retirement is going to look like,” he said. 'We all were a little bit scared of retirement. I've done this for 30 years, what the heck am I going to do now? But the beautiful part is to me, my retirement is what I want for retirement. I'm busy, I've got great things to do, I'm doing things that I love to do, whether that's with the network or Westwood One or whatever it is. But I also have the freedom to choose what I want to do. I've got the freedom to coach my boys in football. I have the freedom to tell somebody no and go do something with my family or go spend a weekend with UNI.

'I get amazing opportunities that I don't have to say yes to any of them. I'm not locked into, you have to do this. You've got to do this five days a week. I don't have that.”

For most of Wednesday, Warner sat in a Chicago restaurant booth and broke down the pros and cons of quarterback prospects Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota for reporters. His situation as a one-year starter from Northern Iowa is difficult to compare with the likely top two NFL draft selections.

'I think the hard part for me was nobody knew and nobody was willing to give me the opportunity,” he said. 'Once I got the opportunity, it was a clean slate. Nobody had any positives or negative really on the board. It was just kind of like, here's this canvas, let's see what he is.”

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