00:00How many times did you guys have to go around the table before you gave a guy who was basically
00:05a journeyman who had been cut numerous times in numerous places to get sold on Kurt Warner?
00:11How many times around the table did you have to go?
00:14So it was, you know, really the end of spring before we broke for summer.
00:19Dick had a staff meeting in his movie.
00:22It's just the opposite of what happened.
00:24And nobody, everybody wanted to bring another quarterback in, a veteran quarterback.
00:31And Mike White was fighting for it.
00:33And, of course, Mike and Dick are close.
00:34But Dick made it clear that would be my decision.
00:37You know, he was good with that.
00:38And so the last question before we broke, he said, is Kurt good enough to be a starter?
00:43Is he our number two or do we need to go out and get Jeff Hostetler, which is who everybody
00:46wanted to bring in?
00:48And I'd seen enough of him, you know, and put enough pressure on him in the spring by that point.
00:52And, you know, I said, I don't know how good he's going to be, but he's good enough to start
00:55for us.
00:56And we're going to be a real good football team.
00:58The one thing I knew about Kurt, he's going to try and do everything just the way you want him
01:01to do it.
01:01And the one thing that was, his processing was really, really different, unusual.
01:08So it was all there.
01:10It was just, we just got to get him ready.
01:12I just didn't have any issues with Kurt at all.
01:15Like I said, I didn't know how good he'd be, but he was trying to do everything the way we
01:19wanted to do.
01:19So fast forward to the fall, we'd gone through camp.
01:24He'd had a good camp.
01:25I'd put a lot of pressure on him to see if he could handle it, and he did.
01:28And so when this happened, it wasn't really, oh, no, you know, what are we going to do now?
01:34We felt, we all felt, and Dick at that point did too, that Kurt was the guy, and we're not
01:39concerned about that.
01:40But Trent Green was such an unusual personnel and such a great human being that we were all devastated for
01:47him because this was going to be such a great year for him.
01:49And so that's where all of our emotions were for about a day.
01:53And then we got Kurt in there, we got him ready, and off we went, you know.
01:56But, you know, to see that transition wasn't an issue for us.
02:01We just felt like he'd be good.
02:03We didn't know how good he'd be, obviously, but we felt like he was going to be good enough.
02:08Coach, when you're in that booth, Ann, when did that light click and you went, okay, this might be special?
02:17Was it like the early part, the first quarter of the season?
02:20Was it right away, or was it a gradual that you guys went, I think we got something special here
02:26going on with this quarterback and with this group of men?
02:30Well, for the team itself, it was in minicamp in the spring.
02:33We were really good on defense, and defense just used to own the offense there.
02:38And we got going on offense and had success in minicamp against our defense, and there was a different feeling
02:43then.
02:43There's a groundswell, so to speak.
02:45But in that first game against Baltimore, Kurt threw three picks, I think, in the first half.
02:50None of those picks were his fault.
02:53One was a bad play designed by me.
02:56One was a tip ball bounced off of Marshall's shoulder pad.
03:00Nothing was his fault, and he didn't blink.
03:03He came back in the second half, and the hardest thing for any quarterback to do after those picks, whether
03:08they're his fault or not, is to come back and play well.
03:10And he came back in the second half and was exceptional.
03:12So I think at that point, the emotional thing of throwing interceptions is hard on guys.
03:18But to come back and play just perfect football in that second half, then you kind of knew that we
03:23might have something there.
03:24And, of course, he just got better and better every week.
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