It was 25 years ago this month that St. Louis was supercharged with an electric atmosphere that was enveloping the entire region. It was a giddy glow that only sports can illuminate.
A quarter century ago this week, on Jan. 16, 2000, the St. Louis Rams beat Minnesota 49-37 in the first NFL playoff game ever played in the Gateway City -- something the Cardinals never accomplished in their stay from 1960-1987 and the Rams had not done in their previous four seasons in town.
But this 1999-2000 Rams team not only was special, it changed the sport with its rollicking "Greatest Show on Turf" offense quarterbacked by Kurt Warner and designed by Mike Martz.
Warner not only had a personal rags-to-riches story, emerging from stocking grocery shelves to fashioning a Pro Football Hall of Fame career, but the team also embarked on a fairy tale run to the Super Bowl championship after facing preseason odds as high as 250-1 to win it -- not surprising as the club was coming off 4-12 and 5-11 seasons.
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But the club rammed its way through the schedule, going 13-3 before enduring some tense postseason moments en route to wearing the crown.
Warner's story has been told before in many forms of media, even in movie theaters with "American Underdog," and now a new version chronicling his captivating life is set to debut at 9 p.m. Friday on MGM+.
That's a premium-content channel available via streaming and also is carried on many programming distributors, such as Amazon Prime, Roku, Spectrum (Charter), Apple TV+, U-verse, DirecTV, fubo, Sling, YouTube TV, Xfinity and Fire TV devices. Subscriptions are approximately $7 per month (www.mgmplus.com), and a free seven-day trial is offered to some.
The Warner story kicks off the fourth season of "NFL Icons," one-hour NFL Films productions set for the same time slot over four consecutive Fridays that focus on Hall of Fame players -- next up, in order, are DeMarcus Ware, Joe Montana and Gale Sayers.
The Warner episode hits hard on his faith; his relationship with wife, Brenda; his large family and, of course, his improbable story. In college, he was a backup quarterback for most of his time at Northern Iowa -- after having been ignored by bigger schools -- then drew a training-camp sniff from the Green Bay Packers but was cut. He kept at it, playing indoor football in Des Moines then outdoors in Europe before shockingly bursting onto the NFL scene in St. Louis. But he eventually faltered again before epically rising once more to conclude his career.
The show discusses how Warner's journey was a storybook adventure from early on, with so many things falling into place to create his Hollywood tale. For instance, he became a quarterback essentially by default. He had been a wide receiver as a kid but says one year no QBs went out for his high school team.
"Our coach had the ingenious idea of lining us all up, giving us all a football and seeing who could throw the ball the farthest," Warner says.
He had the arm but still a receiver's mentality. He was the proverbial deer in the headlights to a pass rush. So the coach developed what he called the "Kill Kurt" drill designed to keep him in the pocket.
"That pass rush is going to be able to hit you if you don't throw the football," Warner says he was told. "We'd do it over and over again. It was hit after hit.
"It's funny how life works. If you talk to people now and ask them what my greatest strength was, they would probably say, 'His ability to stand in the pocket and deliver a pass at the last second while getting hit.'"
His career took so many hits early on that it's almost a miracle he even made it to the NFL.
After being released by the Packers, he returned to Cedar Falls, Iowa.
"The one thing I did have was a car," he says in the documentary. "It was the middle of the winter, you know, Brenda and myself and the kids were driving somewhere. Money was tight, and we ran out of gas and it was freezing cold, and we were stuck on the interstate. It was one of those moments where you just go, 'What am I doing? Nothing really going in life.' You know, something's got to change.
"Thus, my infamous stint in the grocery store," he says.
That helped pay the bills while he still had not given up on football. But it was a time for introspection.
"No one has ever gone from (stocking) Aisle 7 to the NFL before," he says. "That was probably the toughest moment of my entire journey. No one had ever walked that path before."
Brenda was in nursing school, so he'd watch her children from a previous marriage during the day, work in the grocery store at night and in between work out with the Northern Iowa football team "just in case there happened to be a scout around and to stay in shape," Brenda says. "He would do that over and over. ... I knew I had somebody special."
The winding path
Warner made a bit of a name for himself by quarterbacking the Iowa Barnstormers in the Arena League, saying that "may have been the most fun I ever had playing football." Then there was a stint with Amsterdam in the NFL's European league, a deal he says he took with the stipulation that he'd be invited to an NFL camp afterward so he'd "at least have that one last chance to compete for an NFL team" -- at age 28.
The team that agreed to give him a look was the Rams, but coach Dick Vermeil was on the outside.
"I knew nothing about him," Vermeil says in the documentary. "... We were the only team that would bring him in and give him a workout." That was in 1998.
"I had the worst tryout of my entire life," Warner says. "I thought ... it's probably done."
But to his surprise, he was offered a contract anyway.
"Not one of us knew what we were signing at the time," Vermeil said. "What we thought we were signing was a fourth quarterback that could compete for the third quarterback job on our roster."
Tony Banks was the starter with Steve Bono the backup, so Warner was vying with Will Furrer for the last slot, which he won.
In 1999, the Rams brought in local product Trent Green to be their starting QB to coincide with the arrival of running back Marshall Faulk and receiver Torry Holt. Warner was slotted for backup status until Green suffered a knee injury in an exhibition game that knocked him out for the entire season. Suddenly thrust into No. 1 status was Warner, who had thrown a grand total of 11 passes in his only previous NFL season and completed just four.
But he responded with stunning precision, throwing a league-high 41 touchdown passes while igniting the NFL's most dominant offense en route to winning MVP honors.
The Super Bowl injury
After the wild playoff opener against Minnesota, the Rams eked out an 11-6 victory over Tampa Bay in the NFC title game. That sent them to the Super Bowl to face Tennessee, and Warner says he suffered a broken rib or two in the first half of that one.
"I went back to the training room and I laid on the table and said, 'Come get me when halftime's over,'" he says. "There never was any question I was going to play."
Warner's preparation way back in high school paid off again.
"I look back to the 'Kill Kurt' drill and that idea of handling chaos and being calm under pressure and not panicking when things get thrown at you," he says.
Warner threw for 414 yards that day, then a Super Bowl record, including a 73-yard hookup with Issac Bruce late in the contest that gave the Rams a 23-16 lead before Mike Jones tackled Kevin Dyson just short of the Rams' goal line on the final play to win the game.
"I'd never won a championship in anything," Warner says. "It was the greatest football feeling that I ever had."
Tough times
Warner was off to another fine start in 2000 but suffered a broken hand at midseason and was limited to 11 games. He returned in 2001 and roared back, leading the league in passing yards and completions in another MVP season. But the heavily favored Rams lost to New England in the Super Bowl, starting the epic run for Patriots QB Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick.
Warner got off to a slow start the following season and suffered a broken finger on his passing hand in the Rams' fourth game and played little the rest of the way. Then, in 2003, he fumbled six times in the season opener as he still was having trouble gripping the ball. Times were tough -- he was benched before being released in the offseason.
He then signed with the New York Giants, in part to help groom newcomer Eli Manning, and eventually was benched in favor of the rookie. But Warner, of course, had one more comeback story. In 2005, he signed with the downtrodden Arizona Cardinals -- the team that didn't have a home playoff game in its entire 28-season run in St. Louis. He had up-and-down seasons in his first three years in the desert, again hampered by injuries, sometimes being benched and never approaching the success he had in St. Louis.
Back in business
But the magic suddenly returned in 2008, with his grip now improved by wearing gloves. Warner threw for 30 touchdowns and 4,583 yards in leading the team to the playoffs, then threw four TD passes in a victory over Philadelphia in the NFC title game. The Cardinals lost to the Steelers 27-23 in the Super Bowl, but Warner threw for 377 yards and at the time had the top three individual game passing yardage totals in the history of the event.
He retired after the 2009 season and since has had a prominent broadcasting career on NFL Network and with Westwood One, the national radio broadcaster of "Monday Night Football," in addition to devoting more time to his family and charitable endeavors.
The memories of an epic era in St. Louis sports are vivid now, a quarter century after the "Greatest Show" became the talk of the town -- and nation.
"I still believe that collection of talent, what we accomplished consistently as the 'Greatest Show on Turf,' that is the best offense the NFL has ever seen," Warner says. "We ushered in a new era of football that everybody's playing now."
NFL Icons: Kurt Warner
Debut: 9 p.m. Friday, MGM+
Repeats: 8:10 a.m. Saturday, 8:50 a.m. Sunday. Also available around the clock on MGM+ app starting Friday night.
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