Kurt Warner: Tough times were blessing

Kurt Warner normally isn't a "why me?" type of person.

But when the former Cedar Rapids prep went from National Football League Most Valuable Player to backup in one season, he wondered why.

Publication Date: 05/18/2005

To many, he went from superstar in 2001 to a has-been in 2004.

"It's about as tough as you can imagine when it came to the football side,"

Warner, 33, said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his new home in Scottsdale, Ariz.

"I kind of had the rug pulled out from under me."

A man who has worn his faith on his sleeve since winning a Super Bowl with the St. Louis Rams after the 1999 season wondered, "God, what are you doing?"

But in the long run, he said, it was just what his faith needed.

"It didn't test my faith in wavering what I believe," said Warner, who will be in Cedar Rapids on Sunday, speaking twice at Spirit of Faith Family Church. "It tested me in my faith, where I was, how strong I was. It really showed me where I am in my faith, where my strengths are, where I need to grow.

"My faith has been strengthened."

After the 2001 season, when he led the Rams back to the Super Bowl and won his second NFL MVP award, Warner played in just nine games over the next two seasons in St. Louis.

He suffered a series of injuries and lost his starting job. He struggled when he did play and ultimately was told the team was going in another direction.

He went to New York last year, signing with the Giants and starting the first nine games.

But No.-1 draft pick Eli Manning was waiting in the wings.

After nine starts, Warner again found himself as a backup.

Warner believed in himself, believed he still had the talent to win games, maybe even another Super Bowl or two.

"I didn't feel like it had anything to do with me," he said. "It was outside circumstances.

"I tried to make sense of it. They really didn't give me an explanation."

But, Warner said, "I definitely have my own thoughts and ideas of what happened."

He didn't elaborate.

He said it took the fun out of the game.

"It's just hard," he said. "It's difficult.

"You think the politics will never play that big of a role. Let's just line us all up and whoever is the best guys, let them play."

Warner is in Arizona now, ready to lead the Cardinals into the playoffs. The talent is there, he said, to make that kind of run.

The quarterback job is his to lose, he said. He's excited about football, eager to play again.

It was a tough three years. But, he said, looking back, it was a blessing.

"I just think I'm so much better as a person, as a Christian, than I was three years ago," he said.