Does Kurt Warner Belong in Canton?

I'm fairly new to this site, so I'm not sure how many Kurt Warner HOF articles already exist or not.

Well, I'm about to tell you why I would vote for him.

Warner has the one thing every player wants and what every quarterback is measured on, and that's a Super Bowl ring when he was a member of the Rams. He was also the MVP of that victory, which was against the Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV, a 23-16 win.

He has also made it to two other Super Bowls, one with the Rams and one with the Cardinals.  Craig Morton is the only other quarterback in NFL history to be the starting quarterback for two different teams in the Super Bowl.

Speaking of those Super Bowls, he has the top three passing yards in a game in those three games, with 414 in Super Bowl XXXIV, 377 in Super Bowl XLIII, and 365 in Super Bowl XXXVI.  His 1,156 career Super Bowl passing yards is also the most all-time.

After the Cardinals thrilling victory over the Packers yesterday, his current playoff record as a starter is 9-3, with two of those losses coming in Super Bowls.  He also has the highest career playoff passing percentage with 66.5 percent of his passes completed.  He, along with Daryle Lamonica, is one of the only two quarterbacks to throw five touchdowns in a playoff game twice.

With three more playoff wins this season, Warner will obtain that elusive second ring and likely cement his place in Canton.

His career quarterback rating in the playoffs is 104.5.  That's flat out ridiculous.

He has thrown 31 touchdowns in just 12 playoff games (2.58 per game), compared to just 13 interceptions.  He has also thrown for 3,740 yards in those games, which is just under 312 yards per game.

Warner is arguably the greatest playoff quarterback of all-time.  He doesn't have the rings to show it, but he was a defensive stand away from winning his second ring last year, and in his first loss, a defensive stand would have forced overtime and who knows what would have happened there. He also has complied some excellent stats, which certainly helps his case.

He also has some outstanding regular season numbers.

He is a two-time NFL Associated Press MVP.

His 93.7 career QB rating is fifth all-time, and he and Johnny Unitas are the only two players to have four straight games with a passer rating over 120.

He is one of only five QBs to throw for 300 yards five times, and he reached that milestone in the least number of games (113).

He is 26th all-time in career passing yards and touchdown passes, but his average passing yards per game played is second all-time behind Peyton Manning. His career touchdowns per games played is 1.67.  In comparison, the all-time leader in TD passes, Brett Favre, career TD/games played is 1.71.  There isn't much difference between the two.

He is second all-time behind Chad Pennington in career completion percentage.

Also, he has the highest average passing yards per game on Monday Night Football, and you might laugh at this stat.  But this shows that he plays his best on the big stage, just as he does in the playoffs.

However, one knock on Warner is his durability.  He has only started every game in a season three times in his twelve-year career.  Then again, in his first season with the Rams, he wasn't the starter and only played in one game that season.

But if none of those stats make you believe that Warner deserves to be enshrined, maybe he should get your vote solely on his great rags-to-riches story.  Warner was in the Arena Football League and was also a part time worker at a grocery store.  Yes, for a few weeks, Kurt Warner was bagging groceries.

Then he got the call from the St. Louis Rams and was their backup in 1998.  Trent Green was signed to be the starter in 99, but he blew out his knee in the preseason. That incident gave Warner the shot he was looking for.

And did he ever take advantage of it, winning both the regular season and Super Bowl MVP awards that season.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

With those gaudy stats Warner has been able to achieve in just 124 regular season and 12 postseason games, it should be fairly obvious that Warner should get himself a gold jacket and an enshrinement in the Hall of Fame.