Arizona’s Warner ready to test Browns
He’s had an up and down season since taking over for Matt Leinart.
GATEHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
BEREA — The Browns are in a run of games mostly against quarterbacks who haven’t proven squat.
The list:
UGame 10. Baltimore used injury replacement Kyle Boller.
UGame 11. Houston QB Matt Schaub was a No. 90 overall draft pick a year before Charlie Frye went at No. 67.
UGame 13. Former Oregon Duck Kellen Clemens can only dream of a year like the one ex-Oregon State Beaver Derek Anderson is riding. Clemens was 12-for-27 for the Jets in a 34-3 loss to Dallas.
UGame 14. Rookie third-round pick Trent Edwards is warming up in the bullpen after J.P. Losman’s latest loss, 36-14 to Jacksonville.
Those episodes are sandwiched around a quarterback with a little meat on his résumé.
Sunday at Arizona brings 36-year-old Kurt Warner.
Warner was the trigger man for one of the great attacks of an era. He was named NFL MVP in 1999 and 2001 on Rams teams he led to two Super Bowls.
His stats were back big time Sunday, when he completed 34-of-48 passes for 484 yards.
Yet even that game reflected his fallen star. He was intercepted twice. His fumble in the end zone resulted in a 36-31 overtime loss to lowly San Francisco. He was sacked while shopping for receivers.
“The ball was supposed to come out quick,” Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt said in his postgame review. “We had success with that before, and we couldn’t do it.”
Warner wouldn’t be doing anything against Cleveland had Matt Leinart panned out. A No. 10 overall draft pick last year, Leinart was erratic in September before getting hurt and going on injured reserve.
Warner is in his third year with the Cardinals, badly needing a win to revive his career. Sunday’s loss dropped his record as an Arizona starter to 6-16, including 2-4 this year.
But he’s dangerous.
Two Sunday’s ago during a 35-27 win at Cincinnati, he went 16-of-28 for 211 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions.
A week earlier in a 31-21 home win over Detroit, he went 21-of-31 for 259 yards, with three TDs and one interception.
Warner was a mad bomber in his St. Louis days, but Whisenhunt isn’t the pass-first kind of coach he played for under Mike Martz.
Coming off the Cincinnati game, Warner told Arizona media: “I have to feel my way through. That’s what I’m trying to do, trying to get comfortable with everything we’re doing, really make it make sense to me.”
Three of the Browns’ four losses are to quarterbacks who, like Warner, have at least one Super Bowl win on their resume — Ben Roethlisberger twice, Tom Brady once.
The other loss was at Oakland, whose starting QB was former Cardinal Josh McCown.
Anderson won a battle against Marc Bulger, the quarterback who replaced Warner in St. Louis. Anderson prevailed against two other veterans, Baltimore’s Steve McNair and Seattle’s Matt Hasselbeck.
If he’s the winning passer Sunday, the Browns will ascend to the rare air of 8-4.