LOS ANGELES -- Former coach Dick Vermeil will never forget what he told quarterback Kurt Warner the day he made the final cut for the then-St. Louis Rams in 1998.
"I said to him, 'Kurt, there's something special about you, and I can't wait to find out what it is,' " Vermeil recalled in a recent phone conversation. "That's the honest-to-God truth."
Vermeil had no idea that Warner would star on his Super Bowl-winning team the following year. Or that he would pass for 12,612 yards over a three-year stretch for an offense nicknamed "The Greatest Show On Turf." Or that he would become a four-time Pro Bowler, a first-team All-Pro on two occasions, a two-time regular-season MVP and one of three quarterbacks in NFL history to lead two separate franchises to football's grandest stage.
Vermeil had no idea Warner would someday find himself on the Hall of Fame's doorstep.
"I couldn't have predicted it, but I had a great feel," said Vermeil, the Rams' head coach when they won Super Bowl XXXIV. "I had a hunch that there was something special about this guy."
Warner was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday, an honor so many considered an inevitability. He found himself among 15 finalists for a third straight year and received the required 80 percent approval from the 48-person selection committee, placing a rightful cap on a storybook career.
It began at Northern Iowa, where Warner was third on the depth chart until his senior year. He went undrafted in 1994 and failed to make a loaded Green Bay team out of training camp. He then stocked shelves at a Cedar Falls, Iowa, grocery store, spent three years playing in the Arena Football League, canceled a tryout with the Chicago Bears because of a spider bite and played a stint in NFL Europa. He did not start his first NFL game until he was 28 years old.
It only happened because Trent Green tore his ACL in a preseason game in 1999, prompting Warner to become the starter of a Rams team coming off a 4-12 season.
"How good he was going to be, nobody could've predicted that," said Mike Martz, the offensive coordinator in 1999 who became the Rams' head coach for the following six years. "We always felt that you can win with Kurt; his learning curve just had to speed up."
Alongside running back Marshall Faulk (inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2011) and wide receivers Isaac Bruce (among the 15 finalists who didn't make the final cut on Saturday) and Torry Holt (yet to crack the final 15), Warner suddenly put together one of the greatest seasons ever, throwing for 4,353 yards and 41 touchdowns with a 65.1 percent completion rate. It was the first of a record three consecutive 500-point seasons for the Rams. And it ended with a close win over Tennessee, during which Warner threw for a Super Bowl-record 414 yards and was named the game's MVP.
"Some people think that a guy like Kurt came out of nowhere," said Bruce, who caught the winning 73-yard touchdown. "But when you really start to peel back the veil and start to peel the orange, you kind of see the work that he put in, his willingness to not give up on his dream."
Injuries plagued Warner after that historic three-year run with the Rams, and over time he was continually passed over by younger quarterbacks, from Marc Bulger to Eli Manning to Matt Leinart.
But Warner kept pushing. In 2008, he beat out Leinart to become the Arizona Cardinals' starting quarterback. Warner was 37 then, yet he still threw for 4,583 yards and 30 touchdowns with a 67.1-percent completion rate. He led the Cardinals to their first postseason home win in 61 years and then to their first Super Bowl, a close loss to Pittsburgh. In that game, Warner threw for 377 yards with a 112.3 passer rating.
To this day, the top three passing-yard games in Super Bowl history belong to him.
"He has the ability to see things, and react to it, better than anybody I've ever seen," Martz said.
Somewhere on Martz's laptop are numerous throws Warner made that he still can't believe. One was a red zone dart toward the middle of the field intended for wide receiver Ricky Proehl, who doesn't even show up in the picture until the final instant. Another came on a safety blitz. Warner heaved the ball deep, five yards before Bruce's break on a post route and still hit his receiver in stride, just before absorbing a vicious hit. Martz pulls these highlights up when he wants to show people how well Warner anticipated throws and how accurate he was with the football.
"Hidden talent," said Vermeil, when asked what resonates most about Warner. "Maybe he wasn't even aware of the talent that he had. I think of a guy with a lot of faith and belief in himself. Not cocky, but confident. Not in awe of his opportunity, and actually played his very first league game as if he played for five years in a row as a starter. He just had tremendous poise. Tremendous poise. He certainly deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. No one ever did what he's done, and no one will ever do it again. Ever."