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Adversity faced: Starting QB Trent Green, a big-money free-agent pickup during
the offseason, was injured during a preseason game and missed the entire season.
How the team coped: Exceptional. Incredible. Magnificent. The bottom line is
that there is not a word that sufficiently trumpets the extraordinary job the Rams did at
dealing with the loss of Green. On a scale of 1-10, give the Rams a 34. As in Super Bowl
XXXIV, which the Rams won. Keep in mind that this was a team coming off a 4-12 record the
previous season. Not only did Kurt Warner post stats that boggled the mind in place of
Green, but the entire Rams offense stepped up its play in a big way.
The Rams could be excused if they were looking for a glass case on the wall that says,
"Break in case of emergency."
Heck, this was worse than an emergency. This was utter catastrophe. It was the
worst-case scenario actually happening.
It was well into the preseason when QB Trent Green, whom the Rams had signed to a
four-year, $16.5 million deal in the offseason, suffered a season-ending knee injury.
That meant backup QB Kurt Warner, who had thrown a mere 11 passes in NFL games in his
career, would get only one preseason start to prepare for the start of the campaign.
Not surprisingly, the Rams’ immediate reaction was similar to what you might see
in a crowded movie theater when somebody screams, "Fire!"
"The devastation started right away on the sideline when Trent Green went
down," Rams head coach Dick Vermeil said. "I looked around and saw Isaac Bruce
kneeling on the turf, banging his fist in emotion. I saw other players on the bench with
tears. We had worked very hard in the offseason to develop what we thought was going to be
an outstanding football team, and then to lose our initial leader that we brought in to
finish it was devastating. It was devastating to the coaching staff, to our team, to the
organization."
Rams OG Adam Timmerman said, "I think everybody was just kind of devastated at the
injury, because (Green) had been doing so well. I think we were just in the locker room
going, ‘Gosh, you know, it’s just a curse on the Rams. We’re just not
supposed to be good, I guess.’ "
Rams DE Kevin Carter said, "My reaction at the time was one of disappointment, one
of sort of kind of dread."
If this funereal mood had carried over into the season, the Rams would have needed a
lucky bounce or two to even match the previous season’s unimpressive 4-12 record.
That didn’t happen. Instead, the Rams stopped mourning by the next morning.
"The very next day we picked it right back up and said, hey, Kurt is our starter
now; we have to really get behind him, give him our support," Carter said.
Timmerman said, "Coach (Vermeil) just said, ‘We’re going to rally around
Kurt,’ and pretty much that no other team feels sorry for us because we had lost our
quarterback. That we’ve got to go out and we’ve got the same schedule to play
and just rally around the guy that’s our current quarterback."
Was this support justified, or was it support surrendered because there was no other
choice? After all, hadn’t the coaches been hammering away at Warner’s every
mistake during training camp?
"Throughout training camp, it didn’t seem like I could do anything
right," Warner said. "I was the whipping boy. The coaches were all over
me."
But there was a method to their madness. They weren’t berating the class dunce.
They were making an investment in the team’s future. An investments that would be
asked to pay massive dividends much earlier than expected.
"It all started in training camp," Green said. "(Rams offensive
coordinator) Mike Martz had made a point to me that Kurt was going to be the backup and
that he was going to be extremely hard on him mentally, because you have to be to handle
playing quarterback in the NFL. Throughout camp, Mike was constantly pounding on him,
trying to get him to understand the tempo of the offense, how fast you have to be, how
quick you need to make your reads, how fast you need to get rid of the ball. He put a lot
of pressure on Kurt, and you could see Kurt develop all the way from the minicamps through
training camp. At first he was frustrated and wasn’t sure why Mike disliked him so
much — and it had nothing to do with that. Mike was trying to prepare him for a
situation like he ultimately ended up being in."
If Warner’s inexperience and the fact that the coaches were all over him had the
rest of the Rams concerned, they certainly didn’t let the new No. 1 quarterback see
it.
"My teammates were great with the amount of confidence they had in me,"
Warner said. "You know, the support that I got from Day One, that they didn’t
let me see it on them that they were worried at all. And I’m sure some of them were,
but all they did was supported me and gave me confidence day-in and day-out that I could
be the guy and that I could lead this team; and they were all going to step up to the
plate around me and we were going to be successful."
Step up to the plate. That just may have been the key phrase in Warner’s comment.
Step up to the plate. That just may have been the key to the Rams’ season.
Everywhere you looked, Rams players were stepping up to the plate and knocking the ball
out of the park. It was as if the entire team decided to hold a home-run derby in the same
season.
As a team the Rams hit a grand slam, finishing the regular season with a 13-3 record,
winning the NFC West division title and then winning out in the postseason en route to a
23-16 victory over Tennessee in Super Bowl XXXIV.
Kurt Warner stepped up to the plate and delivered.
The equivalent of Warner’s season in the corporate world would see an employee go
from working in the mail room to the CEO’s office in less than a year.
To get to this point in his career, Warner worked in more off-the-beaten-path locales
than a run-of-the-mill bar band.
Warner had gone from Northern Iowa to the Iowa Barnstormers in the Arena Football
League. He had played for the Amsterdam Admirals in NFL Europe. And he had thrown for a
puny 39 yards as an NFL quarterback.
In Week One of the 1999 season, Warner took an eraser to his pedigree by throwing for
309 yards and three touchdowns in the Rams’ 27-10 win over the Ravens.
It was as if the guy who changes bedpans at the hospital suddenly discovered the cure
for cancer. Who knew?
"It’s so exciting to see a guy come up from nowhere," Vermeil said.
"And stick with it, stay with it."
Just as impressive as Warner’s statistical output was the fact that rather than
faint from surprise, he acted as though it was nothing more than he’d expected.
"He comes in like he’s been running this offense and we don’t have
anything to worry about," Rams C Mike Gruttadauria said. "Business as
usual."
Vermeil said, "His overall composure and awareness in all phases of what he was
doing was far better than anybody could expect."
Warner’s reaction was closer to a yawn than a scream for joy.
"I know this is the NFL and a lot of people want to make it a big deal," he
said. "But I’ve played football a long time, and I felt like I was just playing
another game out there."
What’s the old saying about how to behave when you get into the endzone for a
touchdown? Act like you’ve been there before.
In the weeks that followed, Warner did more than just act like he belonged. He played
so well that it seemed as though he needed a better league to test him. Quite simply, he
was playing in a league of his own.
Four games into the season he was completing an astonishing 73 percent of his passes,
had an obscenely good 14-3 TD-interception ratio and was the owner of an other-worldly
136.0 passer rating.
"I always had confidence in him," Vermeil said. "Now I have blind
confidence in him. Now, when he throws an incomplete pass, it’s like, ‘My gosh,
what’s wrong with you?’ "
Warner was so unstoppable as a passer that the Rams had needed to give star RB Marshall
Faulk only 11 and seven carries in Weeks Four and Five.
"This is the second game I’ve been a decoy," Faulk said. "I hope
somebody tells (opposing defenses), ‘Look, he’s throwing for 400 yards a game;
you’ve got to stop the pass.’ "
Midway through the season, Warner had 24 TD passes and only five interceptions. Then
Vermeil said something flat-out scary.
"He still isn’t in a 100 percent groove with everything we’re doing, and
he makes mistakes fundamentally," Vermeil said. "But when you put the total
package together, what he’s doing is amazing, just amazing."
That’s right, Warner was making NFL defenses look as if they were running on ice
despite the fact that he wasn’t completely in sync as the starter. It’s a
miracle the rest of the NFL didn’t go on strike right then and there in protest. It
may have been the only way to stop Warner the rest of the season.
"He’s oblivious to the pass rush," Vermeil said 13 games into the
season. "They do not break his concentration."
By the time the playoffs rolled around, Warner had written as good a story as
you’ll ever see. He finished the regular season with a passer rating of 109.2 and was
named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player.
"Beyond amazing," Vermeil said. "It really is. You have been around in
the league a long time, you have covered a lot of people, but I don’t know if you
ever (have) been able to write a story about a guy that has come from where he has to do
what he is and has accomplished. If I had known he was this good, I would have started him
last year, but you don’t know that."
Not even the people who bet on 99-1 shots at the racetrack anticipated what Warner
would accomplish.
"Anyone who says they thought Kurt Warner would be as good as he has been this
year would not be telling the truth," Rams LB London Fletcher said. "We knew
Kurt Warner was a good football player, but we didn’t think he would be this
good."
The dream season continued all the way through the postseason. Given his out-of-nowhere
level of outlandish success, it somehow seemed fitting that Warner — the guy who was
a $5.50-an-hour stock boy on the graveyard shift in Cedar Falls, Iowa, almost five years
earlier while still dreaming of a shot in the NFL — should have a monstrously good
Super Bowl. He completed 24-of-45 passes for 414 yards and was named Super Bowl MVP. A
fiction writer could never get away with penning a tale as improbable as Warner had just
completed.
"(A year ago), 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."
Warner wasn’t alone in stepping up to the plate and delivering.
Sure, his success was the most attention-grabbing, but he had more help than a new mom
in a room full of first-time grandparents.
"The character of this team has been that somebody has stepped up to make a play
every game," Warner said.
It was as though every day on offense Warner got to step up to the buffet. So many
choices.
"It never hurts when you have the guys we have," Warner said. "Marshall
is a special back and does so many things well. I have as good a wide receiver corps as
anyone in the NFL. It’s great to be in my position and have all those weapons at your
disposal."
Faulk said, "We look at each other in the huddle and say, ‘Whoever gets open
first gets the ball.’ My friends on other teams tell me, ‘That offense look like
fun. It looks like you guys are having a blast out there.’ "
It wasn’t just the offensive players who stepped up their play in 1999. It was as
if it were contagious, spreading through the team like a cold goes through a
nursery-school classroom.
"Every facet of the game, every player that’s been called on to do anything
has stepped up and played well," Warner said. "And, you know, when guys have got
injured, when guys have gone down, the guys that have stepped in for them have played as
well as anybody. And I think that’s the key, that everybody is just feeding off
everybody else from an offense, defense, special-teams standpoint. And when we need a big
play, somebody is making it."
In most instances, that somebody was a player who, like Warner, had to overcome an
obstacle of some kind to be in a position to do so.
Step up to the plate and deliver. It was, for all practical purposes, the battle cry of
the Rams on their way to a Super Bowl title.
Marshall Faulk stepped up to the plate and delivered.
A knock on Faulk when the Rams acquired him from the Colts in an offseason trade was
that he didn’t always stay motivated and sometimes had a questionable attitude.
Before the season began, the Rams and Faulk inked a seven-year contract worth about $45
million. The question then became: Would Faulk play like a Pro Bowler or would he lose his
motivation with big money in hand and become less productive?
With this past season now in the books, it seems hard to believe that question was once
asked. Faulk was nothing short of spectacular this past season, rushing for 1,381 yards
(on a whopping 5.5 yards per carry) and catching 87 passes for 1,048 yards.
"He’s the Gale Sayers of this age, and that’s a pretty good
compliment," Saints head coach Mike Ditka said.
What made the Rams’ offense so difficult to defense was the fact that not only
could the Rams throw the ball all over the place to their talented receivers, but Faulk
could still create havoc with a simple safety-valve pass.
"We’ve been getting some big plays and getting deep, but a lot of our best
plays have been just dumping it to Marshall and having him go with it," Warner said.
Particularly telling was a comment after Faulk caught 12 passes for 204 yards and a
touchdown against Chicago in Week 16
"We knew it was coming, we called it out, but he still kept getting the
ball," Bears DT Mike Wells said. "He killed us."
Not only could Faulk hurt opponents with his feet and his hands, he could hurt them
with his brain as well.
In Week Seven, the clock was running down in a game at Tennessee. The Rams were out of
timeouts. Rams WR Az-Zahir Hakim was temporarily dazed and lay on the turf. Faulk to the
rescue. He guided Hakim to the line and in so doing prevented a penalty from being called
and kept the drive alive.
"He knows what everybody does on the field," Rams TE Roland Williams said.
"Marshall’s just the man. It’s very obvious he understands the game besides
having great athletic ability."
Whenever Warner would see a blitz coming, he wasn’t worried. Faulk to the rescue.
"Everything I’m seeing, he’s seeing," Warner said. "When I see
a blitz, I know he’s going to adjust accordingly, so I can get him the ball.
He’s got unbelievable skills, but to me what sets him apart is I’ve never been
around a player that knows as much about what’s going on as Marshall does."
He may have arrived with some questions, but Faulk provided all of the answers last
season. With exclamation points! Warner may have been voted the league MVP, but Faulk
wasn’t far behind.
"I wish they could give the M and half the V to Kurt, and the rest of the V and
the P to Marshall," Williams said.
Continued on Page 2
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