No one knows more about being displaced as a starting quarterback than Hall of Famer Kurt Warner. As an undrafted free agent with the St. Louis Rams in 1999, he parlayed an injury to Trent Green into back-to-back Super Bowl appearances and two MVP awards.
But Warner’s stardom was short-lived. By 2003, he was on the outs in St. Louis, replaced by Marc Bulger, and in 2004 he signed a free agent deal with the New York Giants. That season, however, the Giants had obtained their quarterback of the future in Eli Manning.
Warner’s Giants’ career lasted just nine games. After leading the Giants to a 5-4 record, head coach Tom Coughlin replaced Warner with the rookie and instead of the Giants contending for a playoff spot, they lost six straight games before ending the season with a victory over the Dallas Cowboys to finish 6-10.
Warner went on to Arizona the next season and would lead them to a Super Bowl berth several years later.
On Thursday, Warner was at the Giants’ first training camp as an analyst for the NFL Network and spoke candidly about the Giants’ current quarterback situation in which Manning is in the last year of his contract and the Giants are seeking to replace him with rookie Daniel Jones.
Warner believes the Giants are going to give Manning more rope than they gave him, it seems. If the Giants are winning, Jones’ tenure as the starter will be delayed. But if not, all bets are off.
“There’s a lot more flexibility with this situation because of who Eli is and the ability to kind of let this thing really play out instead of having to sit here and look for the first opportunity to get Daniel,” Warner said. “I don’t think the Giants are going to be doing that and think it can help ease the situation a lot more than these situations where teams are really looking for that first opportunity to say, ‘OK, let’s put him in.'”
Warner did not say one way or the other which was the right path to take, but there is something to getting a young player the reps early on rather than have him sit and watch as a rookie.
“You’ve got to learn what you can and cannot do at this level,” he said. “What the timing looks like and you just can’t get that without being in game-type experiences. Again, you can learn but you can’t learn nearly everything without playing.”
We’ll see what the Giants do here with their quarterbacks. Head coach Pat Shurmur said Thursday the plan for Daniel Jones is “full steam ahead.” So much for no quarterback controversy.
