Approximately 10 years ago I started watching football with AB. Until then I used to blindly believe whatever the talking heads told me to believe in. A combination of skills I began to develop as a PhD student and AB's tutelage made me a more discerning viewer to the point where I no longer watch TV with the volume on. I am content to make up my own mind about what's going on.
Around the time I began picking up the game, I changed the way I followed it - I began picking players to keep track of, rather than teams. It is a trait that has spilled over into all the other sports I watch, including cricket. That way it did not matter to me which player was on the field, I had a rooting interest in almost every match. With the advent of fantasy football, a new spin has come about as now I have players to root against, too, especially if they can influence how my fantasy opponent does against me.
One of the players that I have been rooting for in the last decade is Kurt Warner, formerly a Super Bowl winning QB of the Saint Louis Rams. This year, aged 37, he has had a renaissance of sorts, with a stellar year so far as a member of the Arizona Cardinals. I have always admired his ability to stand in the pocket, see the rush coming his way, but still hang on until the very last milli-second before releasing the ball downfield. The best example of this came in the Super Bowl the Rams won in 1999. Here's when the player and his team caught my fancy (a bonus is the attention given to another favorite of mine, Marshall Faulk):
Peter King of Sports Illustrated tends to verge on the hyperbolic side of reporting, but this tribute to Kurt Warner is great to read as he praises the actions of a guy who is more than just a football player, while nominating Warner for SI's Sportsman of the year award.
2 comments:
I have had kurt warner as my QB last fews years. this year he is killing. u just reminded me that I have not seen a single game of arizona's this year. on my list now.
Rajani, he is one of the Fantasy football teams I have this year and has been absolutely marvelous. I fear that this weekend the Giants will hit him a few times and the yardage may not be as impressive, but overall he is having a fine year at the helm.
Arizona played an Monday Night Football game a couple of weekends ago and I watched it with great interest. Ariona barely held off a 49ers team with a goal line stand. A game that got more publicity for the 49ers bungling the clock at the end than for the Cardinals winning it. Mike Martz even got fined afterwards for criticizing the officials in the post-game interviews.
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