THE UNIVERSITY OF HARWAN
THURSDAY JANUARY 29, 2009
SPORTS
3B
NFL
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Arizona Cardinals' head coach Ken Whisenhunt, center, talks with Kurt Warner, right, and Larry Fitzgerald left, during a Nov. 16 NIL football game against the Seattle Seahawks in Seattle. The Arizona Cardinals as an organization had never been there before, but their coach had Ken Whisenhunt won a SuperBowl in Pittsburgh and he brought some of that Steelers toughness to the desert.
Whisenhunt gets tough on team
BY BOB BAUM Associated Press
TAMPA. Fla. — Even the weather in Arizona was gloomy in the aftermath of the Cardinals' 40-point loss to New England.
One game remained before the playoff began, and coach Ken Whisenhunt was mad.
The grueling Christmas week of practice that followed somehow transformed these NFL clumps into NFC champs who face Pittsburgh Sunday in the Super Bowl.
"I think it's easy to look back on it now and say that it was the turning point," Whisenhunt said on Wednesday. "Obviously, I was very upset with the way we were playing. I also was concerned about a playoff game being two weeks away and the style of football that we were playing."
Concerned is way too mild a word. He was as embarrassed as he was angry, and he apologized to the community.
Whisenhunt put the team in full pads for heavy workouts in a chilly rain on Christmas Eve day. Christmas morning was the same, and the weather was even more miserable for a team accustomed to sunny workouts with temperatures in the 70s.
"He said, 'You know what? Bring the big-boy pads.' Robinson said. "That's the only way I know to basically show I'm not lettin' up, that I'm keeping my foot on the gas pedal and we'll see what happens."
Whisenhunt told the players that anyone who didn't give it his all would not play in the playoffs.
"It made us wake up and realize the playoffs were coming and if we were going to keep playing like we did, we would have a short playoff run," defensive end Bertrand Berry said.
The Cardinals had surrendered without a fight in New England; they trailed 28-0 at the half and 44-0 after three quarters.
The Patriots rolled for 514 yards, 183 on the ground and 331 through the air. Kurt Warner completed 6 of 18 passes for 30 yards. The players seemed more interested in huddling around the sideline space heaters than in playing football.
His team, which had started the season 7-3 and ran away with the weak NFC West, had lost four of five. A defeat in the season finale against Seattle would send the Cardinals into the playoffs at 8-8.
Make that eggs.
The first fell in a 48-20 blowout at Philadelphia in front of a national television audience. Thanksgiving night. Brian Westbrook ran over, through and around the awful
"I think he was real disappointed in the fact he felt like he'd taken care of us all year, taken care of our bodies, being healthy, cutting down reps in practice," Robinson said, "and then we go out there and lay an egg."
defensive game.
The following week the lowly St. Louis Rams came to town, and Arizona clinched the NFC West with a 34-10 victory. It was a bit of fool's gold for Cardinals fans. When the competition got tough again, Arizona folded like a cheap tent.
In the franchise's worst home performance in Whisenhunt's two seasons in Arizona, the Cardinals lost to Minnesota 35-14, allowing Adrian Peterson to rush for 165 yards and Tarvaris jackson to
"Those games shocked us a Little bit," Warner said.
throw for four scores.
"We were playing good teams," he said, "and it was like, all of a sudden, a cloud moved over us and said, 'Hey, this is what it is going to be about. These are what the teams are like in the playoffs. You better showup.'"
Arizona is 4:0 since then.
few sports turnarounds have been more dramatic.
The Cardinals beat the Seahawks 34-21 in Seattle's final game under coach Mike Holmgren. They opened the playoffs by beating
Atlanta 30-24, then stunned the Panthers in Carolina 33-13 before beating Philadelphia 32-25 to win the NFC championship.
"We kind of had an up and down year where there were times we wern't prepared for and we didn't handle very well," assistant head coach Russ Grimm said. "But we're a young football team. They're learning as they go, so we just have to see if we can put together one more."
NFL
Warner back in the game after struggle
BY BOB BAUM
associated press
TAMPA, Fla. — Four years ago Kurt Warner was having a hard time finding a job.
No matter that he had been to two Super Bowls and won one of them, or that he'd been an NFL and Super Bowl MVP.
The perception was that he was washed up, finished, that his storybook career was approaching an ignominious end.
Then the 37-year-old quarterback wrote the most amazing chapter of all with a season that might cement him a spot in football's Hall of Fame, especially if he can lead the Arizona Cardinals, of all teams, to a Super Bowl victory Sunday over the Pittsburgh Steelers.
"Hopefully, it would recognize him for exactly what he is — one of the best players to ever play his position," his coach, Ken Whitenhunt, said.
Warner's story is rooted in a deep faith and a persistent drive to be the very best he can be as a person and a football player.
His return to the top is a dominant theme leading up to this Super Bowl, just as it was in his 1999 season.
"Most times when you do something great, it's not overnight," he said. "It's not something that comes easy. It comes with a lot of hard work, a lot of time, a lot of commitment."
The comment pretty much sums up his life.
Warner played for Northern Iowa, but didn't start until he was a senior. Then he tried out for the Green Bay Packers, but was quickly released. So it was back to Cedar Rapids, where he got a job stocking shelves for a supermarket.
His route from there to the NFL included three seasons with the Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena Football League and two years with the Amsterdam
Before the 1999 season, Warner was a backup with the Rams when starter Trent Green was injured. Coach Dick Vermell turned to Warner, and the result was one of the most prolific offenses in NFL history.
Admirals in NFL Europe.
In the next three years, despite missing five games because of injury, Warner threw for 12,612 yards and 98 touchdowns. There was the Super Bowl championship season and the near-miss against New England in 2001.
But injuries to his finger and hand in 2002 signaled the beginning of the end of his days in St. Louis.
"I never felt like the physical part of my game ever disappeared," Warner said. "I felt like that was always there. The one question I had when I left St. Louis was would I ever get the opportunity to display that again." Warner will make his 20th start of the season on Sunday, the most of his career. As far as his teammates are concerned, he's already a Hall of Famer.
He lost the starting job to Marc Bulger and was released by the Rams after the 2003 season.
Warner's contract with Arizona ends after the Super Bowl. General manager Rod Graves says Warner wants to come back and the Cardinals want to re-sign him. It's hard to imagine him not wanting to keep flinging the ball after a season like this.
But Warner also hints at retirement. His wife Brenda would like him at home with their seven children and held have more time to work with his First Things First foundation.
It's a Christian organization to match his faith-based life.
"Everything I do, everywhere I go, I'm trying to live up to or represent Jesus," Warner said. "Having the faith I have is first and foremost in my life."