Kurt Warner Answers His Critics
Can't We All Just Get Along
Kurt Warner, criticized by former players for saying he prefers his sons not play football, issued a lengthy response saying he is disappointed “we can no longer respect others opinions.”
Warner, a two-time NFL MVP, faced a sharp backlash last week from ESPN’s Merril Hoge and former New York Giants receiver Amani Toomer, which we posted on May 4th HERE, for questioning the safety of playing the game.
Hoge said Warner was irresponsible and “sounded extremely uneducated.” Toomer claimed Warner was disingenuous considering his role as an NFL Network analyst and should “keep his opinions to himself.”
Warner has made his point; now he’s asking for a civil conversation about the dangers of violence in the NFL with fewer individual attacks are needed.
In comments posted on his website, Warner said:
” … I love this game and all the things that it taught me and afforded me along the way, but regardless of all that I have a responsibility to my kids. I cannot be oblivious to the risks of the game of football simply because it was good to me. So as my kids continue to play I worry about them every time they get hit, just as my wife worried about me every time I got hit in my 12 years in the league.
“Now, I don’t want to scare anyone about this great game and I will continue to support all of the adjustments being made by the NFL (& other levels) to increase player safety in hopes that the game of football has a long and healthy run as the world’s greatest team sport. But, we must proceed with caution and be informed of how to handle these situations if we ever find ourselves in them (as Mr. Hoge so eloquently stated).”
Warner questioned why Hoge and Toomer considered his comments throwing the game under the bus.
“I don’t know why it is so hard for people to understand how I can BOTH love the game and be grateful for what it did for me and at the same time have concern for my kids in regards to playing it. Why does it have to be one or the other?” Warner wrote.
Amani Toomer Says Kurt Warner Trying To Trash NFL
Sensitive Times
A rash of concussions, recent suicides of former NFL players and the BountyGate scandal have Kurt Warner hoping his sons never again play the sport.
But Warner’s opinion is “a little disingenuous,” according to former New York Giants receiver Amani Toomer, who accused Warner of trying to “trash the game.
“What this reminds me of is the guy at the basketball court, who once he gets done playing takes the ball and ruins the game for everybody else,” Toomer said. “I think Kurt Warner needs to keep his opinions to himself when it comes to this. Everything that he’s gotten in his life has come from playing football. He works at the NFL Network right now. For him to try and trash the game, it seems to me that it’s just a little disingenuous to me.”
Warner, the former St. Louis Rams, New York Giants and Arizona Cardinals quarterback, didn’t appear to be trashing the sport when he made his comments earlier Thursday on “The Dan Patrick Show.”He was speaking as a father of sons who love football, and said the idea of them playing an increasingly dangerous sport “scares me.” Asked point blank if he’d prefer they not play the sport, Warner said “Yes, I would.”
“They both have the dream, like dad, to play in the NFL,” Warner said. “That’s their goal. And when you hear things like the bounties, when you know certain things having played the game, and then obviously when you understand the size, the speed, the violence of the game and then you couple that with situations like Junior Seau. Was that a ramification of all the years playing?
“It scares me as a dad. I just wonder. I wonder what the league’s going to be like. I love that the commissioner is doing a lot of things to try to clean up the game from that standpoint and improve player safety, which helps, in my mind, a lot. But it’s a scary thing for me.”
Warner didn’t appear to take Toomer’s criticism personally, though. Via Twitter, Warner later sent a message to Toomer saying “Sorry that u disagree w/ me old friend! But I will always worry about my kids well being . . . Doesn’t affect my love 4 game!”
Senator Calls Hearing To Examine Bounties In NFL
Bounties? We Don't Need No Stinking Bounties
The Senate wants to grill the NFL about bounties. And the NBA, NHL, NCAA and Major League Baseball are invited, too.
Sen. Dick Durbin is setting up a Judiciary Committee hearing about bounties in professional football and other major sports in the wake of news that New Orleans Saints players received extra cash for hits that hurt particular opponents.
The assistant Senate majority leader, an Illinois Democrat, said Thursday he wants to examine whether federal law should make such bounty systems a crime.
“Let’s be real basic about it here. If this activity were taking place off of a sporting field, away from a court, nobody would have a second thought (about whether it’s wrong). `You mean, someone paid you to go out and hurt someone?’” Durbin said in a telephone interview before raising the issue on the floor of the Senate.
“It goes way beyond the rules of any sporting contest, at least team contest, to intentionally inflict harm on another person for a financial reward,” he said.
His announcement came a day after the NFL took a harsh stand on bounties, suspending Saints head coach Sean Payton for all of next season, and indefinitely banning their former defensive coordinator, Gregg Williams. Saints general manager Mickey Loomis was barred for half of 2012, an assistant coach got a six-game ban, and the team also was docked two second-round draft picks and $500,000.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell still needs to decide what penalties to give players who were involved in the Saints’ scheme from 2009-11.
“I am encouraged by what the National Football League did. What they came down with as a penalty on the New Orleans Saints was decisive and historic,” Durbin said, adding that he thought the league was “taking this very seriously.”
But moving forward, the NFL and other leagues must “come up with standards to make sure this isn’t going to happen again,” he said. Otherwise, lawmakers will need to “at least explore whether it is necessary to have federal legislation in this area.”
One possibility, Durbin explained, would be to extend federal sports bribery laws to cover bounties, so that “if someone offers in a team sports situation some sort of value, money or otherwise, to intentionally hurt another player, that, in fact, would be a crime.”
In an email to the AP, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello wrote: “Commissioner Goodell has taken strong action to ensure that bounties are eliminated from the NFL. We have not heard from Senator Durbin but would be pleased to discuss the matter with him.”
Under the bounty system overseen in New Orleans by Williams – who was hired in January by the St. Louis Rams – the targeted players included quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton, Brett Favre and Kurt Warner. “Knockouts” were worth $1,500 and “cart-offs” $1,000, with payments doubled or tripled for the playoffs.
According to the league, Saints defensive captain Jonathan Vilma offered $10,000 to any player who knocked then-Vikings QB Favre out of the 2010 NFC championship game.
Durbin isn’t sure when the hearing will happen, but he said it could be two to three weeks from now.
Kurt Warner Gets Reality Series Picked Up By USA Network
Poster Child
The USA Network announced that it has picked up the nine-episode reality series “The Moment,” in which former Super Bowl MVP Kurt Warner will give people a second chance to return to abandoned careers. Warner knows about second chances: He famously went from bagging groceries to leading the St. Louis Rams to a Super Bowl victory in just 18 months.
Each week, Warner will surprise someone nominated by a loved one and give him or her a chance to pursue dreams ranging from race car driving to orchestra conducting to deep sea diving.
Kurt Warner Says Tim Tebow Should Tone Down Religious Talk
Be Calculated With It Then Blast Them With It
Kurt Warner was known as one of the most religious players in the NFL when he played and he has a message for the games newest one Tim Tebow. The former Super Bowl winning quarterback learned that constantly mentioning the Lord name can be a turnoff for some people, so he made an adjustment.
“There’s almost a faith cliche, where (athletes) come out and say, ‘I want to thank my Lord and savior,’” Warner told the Arizona Republic. “As soon as you say that, the guard goes up, the walls go up, and I came to realize you have to be more strategic.”
Warner feels that’s a lesson Tebow could benefit from.
“You can’t help but cheer for a guy like that,” Warner said of Tebow. “But I’d tell him, ‘Put down the boldness in regards to the words, and keep living the way you’re living. Let your teammates do the talking for you. Let them cheer on your testimony.’
“I know what he’s going through, and I know what he wants to accomplish, but I don’t want anybody to become calloused toward Tim because they don’t understand him, or are not fully aware of who he is. And you’re starting to see that a little bit.”
Kurt Warner Thinks Brett Favre Tarnished His Legacy
An American Dream
Former NFL quarterback Kurt Warner was on the NFL Network last night and in so he was discussing Brett Favre and whether he hurt his legacy.
“I think he did tarnish his legacy,” Warner said. “Not only this season, but the last few seasons, going back and forth [on retirement] and bouncing to a few different teams. I think about it, and I have to really think hard to think back to when he was a Green Bay Packer and when he played his best football and was in Super Bowls and when he became the Brett Favre we all know.”
The former Super Bowl MVP also said that when he thinks about Favre, he thinks about the “chaos that’s happened the last couple of years.”
Buffalo Wild Wings Blazin Player: Aaron Rodgers
Aaron Rodgers
Every Tuesday Sports Grind Entertainment presents you with the Buffalo Wild Wings Blazin Player of the Week. This week the recipient of this prestigious honor goes to Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers who returned for the first time since suffering a concussion against the Detriot Lions in week 14 to lead all NFL passers with 404 yards and 4 touchdowns. Rodgers performance was done without an interception and a quarterback rating of 139.9.
Rodgers 404 yards on the day also put him into an elite category of quarterbacks to have passed for 12,000 in their first three season as a starter. His total of 12,165 yards joined that of Super Bowl winning quarterbacks Kurt Warner (12,612) and Peyton Manning (12,287) as the only to ever achieve the rare feat.
Congratulations Aaron Rodgers you are this weeks Buffalo Wild Wings Blazin Player.
Rick Fox & Kurt Warner To Join ‘Dancing With The Stars’
Taliban Hair
Former NBA player Rick Fox and recently retired NFL player Kurt Warner will join Dancing with the Stars as the pair will make up a portion of the Season 11 contestant list. Fox and Warner hope to continue the success of past athletes on the show but will join a cast that already includes Bristol Palin, the daughter of political firecracker Sarah Palin, and “The Situation,” the dude from the MTV show Jersey Shore.
Fox has been retired for awhile, calling into question his conditioning and Warner was never the most mobile quarterback on the field, so how do you think Fox and Warner will do? Will they continue the legacy of successful sports stars?
Cincinnati Bengals Chad Ochocinco Has His Own Cereal
Helping Get Those Bugatti Payments Back
Cincinnati Bengals Chad Ochocinco is ready to bring you his own cereal. From the makers of Flutie Flakes and Ed Mcaffrey’s Spicy Brown Mustard is ready to hit the supermarket shelf’s with “Ochocinco’s,” sold exclusively at Cincinnati-area Kroger’s and on the Web beginning September 7. Ty Ballou the president of PLB Sports, said that a successful run would be to sell 100,000 boxes but if the Bengals make it to the Super Bowl he could imagine hitting the 1 million mark.
Flutie Flakes named after Buffalo Bills quarterback Doug Flutie sold nearly three million boxes. Next up was Kurt Warner’s Crunch Time Cereal, which sold 300,000 boxes a decade ago. PLB Sports also sold cereal of his new teammate Terrell Owens in Buffalo last year. “TO’s” sold 63,000 boxes.
Baltimore Ravens Joe Flacco Hates Bystanders
At the same charity event that saw former NFL quarterback Kurt Warner “Walk It Out” comes video of Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco pegging the filming bystander.
Reminds me of those golf cats with the moving targets in the quarterback challenge during the Pro Bowl week except without the moving.
Ali! Bumaye! Ali! Bumaye! Ali! Bumaye!
Move over Kurt Warner Northern Iowa has another hero with brand new March Madness legend Ali Farokhmanesh.
I wonder what color Sharpie President Obama used
Kurt Warner Retires From National Football League
Never Giving Up
Kurt Warner has called an end to one of the great storybook careers in NFL history. The 38-year-old quarterback announced his retirement from the game after a dozen years in a league that at first rejected him, then revered him as he came from nowhere to lead the lowly St. Louis Rams to two Super Bowls, winning the first of them. Written off as a has-been, he rose again to lead the long-suffering Arizona Cardinals to the Super Bowl a year ago.
Warner walked away with a year left on a two-year, $23 million contract, knowing he still had the skills to play at the highest level.He had one of the greatest postseason performances ever in Arizona’s 51-45 overtime wild card victory over Green Bay Packers on Jan. 10, but sustained a brutal hit in the Cardinals 45-14 divisional round loss to the New Orleans Saints six days later.
Warner leaves the game with a legacy that could land him in the Hall of Fame even though he didn’t start his first game until he was 28. In a comparison with the 14 quarterbacks to make the Hall of Fame in the last 25 years, Warner has a better career completion percentage, yards per pass attempt and yards per game. Only Dan Marino had more career 300-yard passing games.
In 124 regular-season games, Warner completed 65.5 percent of his passes for 32,344 yards and 208 touchdowns. He and Fran Tarkenton are the only NFL quarterbacks to throw for 100 touchdowns and 14,000 yards for two teams.
He was also the fastest player in NFL history to 10,000 yards passing and tied Dan Marino as fastest to reach 30,000. He has the top three passing performances in Super Bowl history. His 1,156 yards passing in the 2008 playoffs broke the NFL record of 1,063 he set with St. Louis in 1999.
He played three seasons in the Arena Football League and one in NFL Europe, mixed in with a sting stocking grocery shelves back in Iowa. Warner made the Rams as a backup in 1998, then was thrust into the starting role in 1999 when Trent Green was injured.
What followed was a masterful and wholly unexpected season, when he led the Rams to a 13-3 regular-season record, then a Super Bowl triumph over Tennessee Titans. He was named the league and Super Bowl MVP. St. Louis was upset in the first round of the playoffs the following season, but Warner had them back in the big game in 2001, where “The Greatest Show on Turf” lost a squeaker to New England Patriots. The season earned him a second NFL MVP award.
But after an injury-plagued 2002 season, he was sacked six times and suffered a concussion in a 2003 season-opening loss to the New York Giants. He never started for St. Louis again. He signed a free agent contract with the Giants for 2004, but was replaced by rookie Eli Manning after nine games. Warner came to the Cardinals in 2005 and was an off-and-on starter before replacing the injured Matt Leinart part way through the 2007 season.
Warner had to beat out Leinart the following spring, then led the Cardinals to the NFC West crown and playoff victories over Atlanta, Carolina and Philadelphia before the narrow loss to Pittsburgh Steelers in last year’s Super Bowl, where he threw for 377 yards.
Warner’s departure leaves Leinart the presumed replacement. The former Heisman Trophy winner has started 17 games for Arizona but only one in the last two years.
Marcus Fitzgerald Tweeting What Everyone’s Thinking
Being Honest
Personally I’m not going to rip Marcus Fitzgerald for tweeting what is going through the minds of Arizona Cardinal fans and fantasy football owners of star wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald.
The younger brother who plays for the California Redwoods of the UFL, wasn’t happy to see big brother catch just four passes for 34 yards and a touchdown in the team’s 31-17 victory at Jacksonville.
Marcus referred to Kurt Warner as an “old ass man” in one tweet, and in another he wrote,
“Just got off the phone with my brother. he’s happy about the win. But PISSED he didn’t get the ball thrown 2 him much!”
Larry Fitzgerald has not been getting the ball. He has just 10 catches for 105 yards through two games but he has capitalized when he has gotten his touches scoring twice. He’s led the NFC in receptions and yards the past two seasons.
With Twitter being a relatively new mainstream media and what to make of social networking, Marcus did latter tweet that it his actions where of his saying,
“That was on me,I shoulda known better.Larry had nothing 2 do w/ ne thing.I apologize 4.”
