Former St. Louis Rams Kurt Warner, Orlando Pace Miss Out on Pro Football Hall of Fame
The St. Louis Rams did have one of their former players elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday night, but instead of the two finalists who were part of the team’s “Greatest Show on Turf” era, quarterback Kurt Warner and offensive tackle Orlando Pace, the only Ram selected was running back Jerome Bettis, who spent just one year in St. Louis before creating the most defining memories of his career with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Warner’s chances as a first-ballot candidate were questionable, so it is not a complete shock that he wasn’t elected this year. Warner took the Rams to two Super Bowls in 1999 and 2001, winning the ’99 edition to give St. Louis its first NFL title, and he took the Arizona Cardinals to their first-ever Super Bowl in 2008. He’s ninth all-time in career passer rating, fifth all-time in passing yards per game, and fourth all-time in career completion percentage.
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However, Warner, who didn’t start a game until he was 28 years old after playing in the Arena League and NFL Europe prior to the NFL, also had a prolonged dark period during the middle of his career. After dealing with injuries in St. Louis in 2002, he fell out of favor with head coach Mike Martz and was benched full-time in favor of Marc Bulger by 2003. The Rams released him, and he spent a season with the New York Giants bridging the gap to Eli Manning before moving on to Arizona in 2005.
Warner continually had to battle for starts in Arizona with guys like Josh McCown and Matt Leinart, and he didn’t fully entrench himself into the starting job there until 2008. However, in two years as the primary starter there, he led them to a Super Bowl in 2008 and an unforgettable overtime playoff victory against the Green Bay Packers in 2009, becoming the most beloved quarterback in franchise history along the way.
Though he played in an era of several all-time great linemen, including recent inductees Jonathan Ogden, Walter Jones, Willie Roaf, Larry Allen, and Shields, Pace is widely considered to be one of the greatest offensive tackles of all time and may have been the best among the bunch during the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, with Shields, who had already been on the ballot three times without being elected, being inducted this year, the voters obviously were reluctant to double up on offensive linemen. Though another longtime great lineman, Alan Faneca, is eligible for induction for the first time next year, Pace seems likely to make it during his second year on the ballot.