Kurt Warner gets set to be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame

Next week, Kurt Warner will get to cap off and celebrate his illustrious career with a week culminating in him putting his arms into a gold jacket and officially becoming an Pro Football Hall of Famer.

Warner finished his 12-year NFL career with 32,344 passing yards and 208 touchdowns through the air, but will be remembered most for his three Super Bowl appearances with the Rams and Cardinals and his one win with the 1999 Rams.

But unlike playing in those Super Bowls, Warner doesn’t have too much pressure on him in Canton.

“I think the great thing about where you’re at now is you can’t screw it up at this point,” Warner told Doug and Wolf on 98.7 FM, Arizona’s Sports Station Tuesday. “When you’re at this point going into a Super Bowl, all you can think about is, ‘man, it all falls on me and I better play well.’ At this point, that stuff is done.

“Even if I screw up the speech I still get in, so at this point I’m trying to enjoy it, I’m trying to prepare the speech and get everything ready with my kids and everybody coming down and the family being there.”

The two-time MVP will stand beside fellow 2017 inductees Morten Anderson, Terrell Davis, Kenny Easley, Jerry Jones, Jason Taylor and LaDainian Tomlinson next Saturday as the Hall of Fame fraternity grows to 310.

“I’m just excited about what’s going to happen,” Warner said. “I don’t know if it feels real yet, so you take it a day at a time and you kind of wait for that moment when it really hits you what this all means and where this places you in the history of the game.”

Warner’s story is well documented. After being cut by the Packers in training camp, he resorted to bagging groceries at a local grocery store before trying out for the Iowa Barnstormers of the Arena Football League.

Two Arena Bowl appearances later, the St. Louis Rams signed him in 1998 as a backup to Trent Green. And in another Wally Pipp situation, Green suffered an injury in the preseason of 1999 and Warner took over, leading the Rams to their first Super Bowl victory and never looking back.

It may take Warner a while to culminate such a journey to the NFL and career during his speech, but he’s not going to be held back by a time limit.

“The one parameter is they try to give you a time limit and they tell you they want it to be between 12 and 14 minutes,” Warner said. “And I’m sorry but, there’s no chance. No way. I get one shot at this, they can try to play the music in the background but I’m gonna keep going on this one.”

He will become the third former Arizona Cardinal to be enshrined in Canton, joining Emmitt Smith and Aeneas Williams in the Hall.

The week will get started on Thursday, August 3 with the Cardinals taking on the Cowboys in the annual Hall of Fame Game.