Warner’s Revival a Giant Plus
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
“There’s no one in the NFL,” Fox commentator Joe Buck said yesterday in typical TV football hyperbolese, “not surprised by Kurt Warner’s performance this season” – except maybe for Kurt Warner and the coach who gave him his shot at a comeback, the Giants’ Tom Coughlin.
Being underrated is pretty much the story of Kurt Warner’s life. He was little-heralded coming out of Northern Iowa and was snatched out of arena football before being given a try by the St. Louis Rams in 1998.
From 1999 through 2001, his only full seasons as an NFL quarterback, Warner threw a mind-boggling 98 touchdown passes against just 53 interceptions – this despite losing five games to injury in 2000 – and took his team to the Super Bowl twice, winning once. Football stats are still only dimly understood, even by most football analysts, but Warner’s numbers from 1999 to 2001 should be regarded to football what Barry Bonds’s recent numbers are to baseball.
The most important basic stat for measuring quarterback effectiveness – in other words, the number that best correlates with winning – is simply yards-per-pass, or gross yards passing divided by the number of throws. Only a handful of passers in modern NFL history have ever topped the magic number 8.5 for a single season – Joe Montana and Dan Marino did it only once, John Elway never did it at all. Neither did Bret Favre, Warner’s opposite number in yesterday’s game at Lambeau Field in Green Bay.
From 1999 through 2001, Kurt Warner was never under 8.7 and averaged 9.06 yards per throw. It is the most amazing three-season stretch for any NFL quarterback since stats started to become meaningful in the Johnny Unitas era.
In retrospect, it’s not so amazing that, after two injury plagued, hard-luck seasons with the Rams, Coughlin gave Warner a tryout. What’s amazing is that no other NFL teams considered doing the same.
When the Giants picked up Warner, New York-area football writers began the inevitable round of quarterback controversy stories, with everyone rushing to judgment on who the Giants should start, Warner or rookie phenom Eli Manning. There never should have been a controversy in the first place: It was clearly in Manning’s best interest to watch, learn, and back Warner up for at least a season.
From Coughlin’s point of view, there was another, even more compelling reason to start Warner, namely that he might have some bullets left in his gun and thus could give the Giants a decent opportunity to win. So far, Coughlin’s decision is paying huge dividends. Warner has thrown just two touchdown passes in four games, but his passing numbers are really much better than that.
So far, counting the Giants 14-7 win over the Packers, Warner has thrown for just 908 yards, but he has averaged 8.0 yards per toss and has suffered just a single interception in 114 throws. These are sensational numbers, much better than anything the Giants have seen in years.
Coughlin’s offensive style is akin to Vince Lombardi’s and Don Shula’s in the early 1970s, a pass-run mix in which the run gets slightly more emphasis. Runs generally mean fewer sacks, interceptions, and holding calls; keeping the ball on the ground is also a more effective way of running the clock down than passing. The more times a quarterback hands off, the fewer hits he has to take.
It’s doubtful that Warner, should he remain uninjured this year, will get enough throws to qualify among the league leaders in yards passing or touchdowns, but that’s not how Coughlin measures effectiveness anyway. Warner’s ability to hit a receiver almost anywhere on the field keeps defenses stretched and opens things up for his running game.
On paper, the Giants’ hero yesterday was Tiki Barber, who ran for 182 yards on just 23 carries, including a 52-yard run in the third quarter that tied the game and gave the Giants momentum. But as color man and former quarterback Troy Aikman shrewdly observed, most of Barber’s big runs came when the Packers were caught blitzing Warner. The Packers’ strategy backfired badly, though with an injury-depleted front defensive four and a weak secondary, it isn’t obvious what strategy would have worked.
On this day, Warner stuck mostly to sharp, short, high-percentage passes, hitting on 20 of 26 for 187 yards. He threw for 74 yards to his great tight end, Jeremy Shockey, whom Coughlin is finding a way to work into the offensive scheme as a secondary receiver over the middle when the wideouts are double covered.
Meanwhile, on defense, the Giants’ aggressive secondary was reaching in the pockets of the Green Bay receivers and stealing their meal money. Late in the game, after several hard hits (the last one resulting in a concussion), Green Bay quarterback Bret Favre gave way to backup Doug Pederson, of whom Chris Collinsworth observed, “the Giants aren’t showing much respect for.”
The Giants secondary wasn’t showing much respect for Favre’s ability to get the ball downfield, either. Favre completed just two passes for more than 20 yards before leaving the game, and the Packers had just one sustained drive for a score while he took the snaps.
Really, it wasn’t much of a game. Had New York’s place kicker, Steve Christie, been able to hit on any of his three field goal attempts – two of them near chip shots – the Giants would have put the game away with ease.
Next week comes the big test against the Dallas Cowboys, a much better defensive team than the Packers, coached by a man whose offensive and defensive philosophies are very similar to Coughlin’s. In some ways, the Giants and Cowboys will probably appear to be playing football in a mirror. The difference will be that Dallas’s 41-year old quarterback, Vinny Testaverde, won’t see Kurt Warner when he looks in the mirror.