Just for the record, I also did a video on this topic for my YouTube Channel. But the subject has a warm place in my heart, and I wanted to give the 1999 St. Louis Rams the special recognition they deserve on this day …
It is Jan. 30, the 25-year anniversary of the Super Bowl triumph by the unforgettable and sensational “Greatest Show on Turf.”
In this column, I added a couple of stories and some details that didn’t appear in the video. I can’t believe that 25 years have gone by. Thanks for reading my reminiscence.
The Rams moved to St. Louis before the 1995 season.
It was a lot of fun having an NFL team again, and that first season was a joy, even if the Rams started fast and faded and finished 7-9. But it was a good and entertaining 7-9. And football was back in Our Town, so who cared about the record? It was a thrill to watch Isaac Bruce catch 119 passes for 1,781 yards and 13 touchdowns. That was a helluva opening act for the award–winning show that would light up the town in 1999.
The Rams won 7 games in that first year.
And 6 wins in the 2nd season, 1996.
And 5 wins in the 3rd season, 1997.
And 4 wins in the 4th season, 1998.
Let’s review: 7 … 6 … 5 … 4 …
The ol’ escalator going down-down-down-down … heading to the bottom floor. Welcome to football hell. From the outside the 1999 Rams were viewed as a non-factor. The Rams didn’t have a quarterback (ahem), were a 200-to-1 longshot to win the championship. And in its season preview, ESPN the Magazine ranked the ‘99 Rams as the worst team in the NFL.
The Rams got off to a hot start, opening the campaign with six straight wins. You could hear a little buzz out there, but let’s just say that neutral observers remained skeptical.
Here’s what Brian Murphy of ESPN.com wrote after the Rams started off with two wins in the first two games. They were about to play at Cincinnati, and the loser of that contest would be stuck with the worst record by an NFL team during the 1990s.
“Did I miss the memo? You know, the one about the End of the World? Listen, there are certain things we’ve grown to count on: death, taxes … but this Rams thing is getting very scary,” Murphy scribed. “What can we count on in this world, if not for a Rams loss? What’s more, Kurt Warner is evolving into the story of the year. How many of you suckers drafted the cat out of Northern Iowa in your fantasy draft? Yeah, sure. Right after you took Stephen Davis and Tim Biakabutuka.
“Bottom line: With Y2K approaching, our nation is in enough of a panic. If the Rams beat the Bengals next week, we might be on the verge of civil unrest. I urge Cincinnati to rise up and beat back the Rams, if only to restore order for a day. But wait! The Bengals? What am I thinking? Don your riot gear, sports fans, it’s going to get ugly.”
The Rams nuked the Bengals 38-10. At that point, the Rams were 3-0 and had outscored their first three victims 100 to 27. Goodness! What’s happening? Where did this come from? Who are these guys?
The Rams responded to those and other questions by coming home to the St. Louis dome and blasting the division-boss 49ers in a 42-20 barrage of offense. After blowout wins over Atlanta and Cleveland, the Rams were 6-0. They had scored 217 points in six games. They had allowed only 63 points in those six games.
That’s right; it is not a typo. The Rams had outscored the first six opponents 217 to 63 … and were just warming up.
During their first four seasons in St. Louis the Rams averaged a puny 18.6 points per game. Untalented. Dull. Ineffective. Predictable. The quarterback carousel was spinning out of control. In the first four years, the Rams’ quarterback rotation consisted of Chris Miller and Mark Rypien and Dave Barr in 1995 … then Steve Walsh, Tony Banks and Jamie Martin in 1996 … then Banks and Rypien in 1997 … then Banks and Steve Bono and some dude named Kurt Warner in 1998.
Kurt Warner? Yeah. I was standing there on the sideline at Candlestick Park in San Francisco when Warner entered the contest late in the fourth quarter in a game that had been put to sleep much earlier in the afternoon. The Niners led 38-19 when Warner made his NFL debut. He completed four of 11 passes for 39 yards.
Kurt Who? OK, we got a look. He, uh, threw some footballs. The 49ers were just wanting to go home. As a first impression in a real NFL game, Warner made no impression at all. Not bad, not good … just a dude tossing the football in a one-sided game of no importance.
We had no idea what was coming.
The next time we saw Warner in a regular season game – Game 1 of the 1999 season – he put holes in a superb Baltimore defense with 309 yards passing and three touchdowns in an easy 27-10 victory.
Warner shrugged it off. “I know this is the NFL and a lot of people want to make it a big deal,’’ he said after the win. “But I’ve played football a long time and I felt like I was just playing another game out there.”
And here we go for the most unexpected season from a team I’ve ever covered in 40+ years as a sportswriter/talker.
Seemingly out of nowhere … hello, Kurt Warner … hello Marshall Faulk … hello Mike Martz, the new offensive coordinator hired by head coach Dick Vermeil … hello again Isaac Bruce … welcome Torry Holt … completions, great runs, crazy offensive formations, and defenses that were panting in confusion and exhaustion. The Rams suddenly took the stage when no one was really paying attention and started putting on the best show of our football lives here in St. Louis.
That Rams offense led the NFL with an average of 33 points per game, which at the time was the fourth best in NFL history.
And check this out:
* The first four St. Louis Rams teams scored 30+ points 12 times in 64 regular-season games.
* The 1999 Rams scored 30+ points 12 times in 16 regular-season games.
This sure was … different.
This sure was … delightful.
The 1999 Rams zoomed to a 13-3 record. They had the most prolific and creative offense in the league. They knocked off the 49ers and won the NFC West. They hosted the first home playoff game in St. Louis NFL history and blew out Minnesota. They won the NFC Championship by outlasting Tampa in a brutal 11-6 street fight. They won the Super Bowl with late heroics that put them ahead of Tennessee in a game that vibrated until the final play. The Rams had a Super Bowl parade in downtown St. Louis on the day after their storybook finish in Atlanta. A story that seemed like fiction but was most definitely non-fiction.
The Rams presented a completely unexpected star in Warner, who came out of Northern Iowa, was cut early from Green Bay’s camp, came out of his late shift at the Hy-Vee supermarket, came out of Arena Football, came out of Amsterdam and NFL Europe … he basically came out of nowhere.
It’s also important to remember that the Rams made some aggressive moves after the 1998 season. They signed free-agent quarterback Trent Green, traded for Indianapolis running back Marshall Faulk, signed free-agent guard Adam Timmmeman, a strong leader who won a Super Bowl with Green Bay. They drafted wide receiver Torry Holt in the first round of the ‘99 NFL Draft … Isaac Bruce was healthy after tearing a hamstring in 1998 … entering his third NFL season, left offensive tackle Orlando Pace was ready to become an All-Pro …
There was veteran linebacker Mike Jones, a team leader who had endured the hard times with the 1997 and 1998 Rams. And when the 1999 Rams were tiring, and huffing and puffing and trying desperately to put the relentless Titans away in the 34th Super Bowl, Jones stepped up and made THE TACKLE of wide receiver Kevin Tyson at the one-yard line to deny Nashville’s team the tying touchdown.
Let’s go back a bit.
When Trent Green suffered a season-ending knee injury in the third preseason game, the Rams were crestfallen. They were down. They thought they might be out. They certainly were out of luck – or so it seemed. From ownership on down, the Rams thought they had a chance to be something special, and now their quarterback was lost for the year. They had to take a chance on Warner – the largely unknown – and definitely unheralded – QB.
But the OC, OG Martz really liked Kurt. Martz really put Warner through the grinder. Barking at him after every mistake in practice. Barking at him for throwing to the wrong receiver. Barking at him for poor throws. Barking at him for missing the pre-snap reads.
This was all intentional. Martz wanted to see if Warner could handle pressure. He wanted to see if Warner had the necessary mental toughness to deal with everything that NFL defenses throw at a quarterback. Warner passed the test.
When Green got hurt – a devastating blow – Vermeil asked Martz to give him an honest assessment of Warner. Was he good enough to start? Could he lead an offense? Was he calm, or prone to panic? Here’s what Martz told Vermeil: “If Kurt is our quarterback, we’ll be fine. We’re fine with him. He has impressive accuracy, he understands a complicated offense, and he never flinched once when I yelled at him, challenged him and stayed on his case. Never reacted except to get to the next play. This guy had great inner confidence that couldn’t be broken, and that’s what I wanted to see. If he couldn’t handle my yelling at him, how could he handle a defense coming after him?”
Martz knew. He really did. I remember talking to him after Green went down, and Martz dismissed the idea of going out and trying to talk former Giants quarterback Jeff Hostetler to come out of retirement. Martz told me that Warner would be a better quarterback. And he meant it. And in time every person believed it too.
Other people offered interesting stories.
After Green was struck down, I got a call from Rams owner Georgia Frontiere. She told me a story from a long time ago. She was married to Carroll Rosenbloom, who owned the Baltimore Colts. Georgia was at every Colts game.
In 1956, Baltimore’ starting quarterback, was George Shaw … not to be confused by the writer George Bernard Shaw. But the George Quarterback Shaw was a highly regarded passer who was selected by the Colts with the top overall pick in the 1955 draft.
In his second year, 1956, Shaw was smashed in the fifth game of the season and suffered a broken leg. An obscure quarterback named John Unitas was the backup who replaced Shaw.
Unitas was signed by the Colts after making $6 dollars a game in a semi pro league. He was the quarterback for the Bloomfield Rams, a team headquartered near the Little Italy section of Pittsburgh.
The Colts acted on a tip sent to them by a scout and signed Unitas. No one in Baltimore even knew how to say his name. They called him “Unee-tas.” They would soon be calling him Johnny U. The legend was born. From those humble origins, Unitas went on to quarterback the Colts to consecutive NFL championships in 1958-1959. He started Super Bowl V, a game won by the Colts on a last-second field goal. Unitas was one of the all-time great quarterbacks in NFL history.
OK, so what does this have to do with Georgia Frontiere?
She knew I came from a long line of Baltimore Colts fans. It was in our heritage, as important as perogies and cherneena.
“Remember Johnny Unitas,” Georgia said. “We lost our quarterback and everyone was sad. But remember what Johnny did? Remember the Unitas story? Why can’ Kurt Warner be like Johnny?’ I’ve seen it happen before.”
Why yes indeed. Why not? I appreciated the call. If the Rams owner wanted to talk about Baltimore Colts football, I was game. I’ll get back to the story later.
Anyway … Vermeil hired Martz as offensive coordinator and Martz knew what to do with this influx of talent. No West Coast offense for Martz. He took the Air Coryell offense and advanced it with more innovative formations and personnel groupings. He kind of made it evil – at least to the defense. Martz added the flair and bravado of a WWE wrestling star. The Rams were not only excellent offensively, but they made every game an event, a show. Hence: The Greatest Show on Turf.
This season Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes set a new NFL record for most game-winning drives in a season. He had eight during the regular season, and another in last week’s tight AFC Championship win over Buffalo.
Do you know how many fourth-quarter comebacks and game-winning drives were engineered by Kurt Warner in 1999?
None. Not in the regular season. The 1999 Rams were so dominant, Warner didn’t have to conjure any miracle comebacks. The ‘99 Rams outscored opponents by an average of 18.6 points per game – still the greatest point differential in a season by a team that won the Super Bowl.
OK, but do you know how many 4th quarter comebacks and game-winning drives Warner had in the 1999 postseason? He had a fourth-quarter comeback and the game-winning drive to beat Tampa Bay in the NFC title game. Warner’s late touchdown pass to Ricky Proehl gave the Rams an 11-6 win that was scary close to being a loss.
And then in the Super Bowl, Warner did it again … another game-winning drive. With the score tied at 16-16 with 2 minutes and 5 seconds left, he dropped back and connected with Isaac Bruce for a 73-yard catch and run for the winning touchdown. When the Rams needed Kurt to make the rescue in the postseason, Warner was utterly fearless and unflappable under duress.
Warner passed for more than 4,000 yards and 41 touchdowns in the 1999 regular season. He aired it out for 1,063 yards and eight touchdown flicks in three postseason games. Kurt set the Super Bowl record with 414 yards passing, to go along with two touchdown throws but no interceptions. Super Bowl MVP.
Faulk was the perfect piece for the Martz offense. No. 28 could burn defenses as a runner and a receiver, and his all-purpose presence made it easier for Martz to force the defense to make a decision: who do you want to stop? If it’s Faulk, we’ll just hit the wide receivers and they’ll run right by you. If you play extra defensive backs to stop the receivers and leave space in the middle, we’ll just throw the ball to Faulk, and good luck catching him. If you want to double up on Bruce or Holt, then Kurt will spot it, change the play, and feed the ball to Marshall.
In 1999, Faulk set an NFL record with 2,429 yards from scrimmage. Marshall had more than 1,300 yards rushing and more than 1,000 yards receiving, and made 110 total first downs as a runner and receiver.
Holt, Az-Hakim and Proehl combined for 1,800 yards receiving and 14 touchdowns. Tony Horne returned three kickoffs for touchdowns including a big one in the destruction of the Vikings in that first-ever postseason NFL home game played in St. Louis.
And how good was Orlando Pace? He had Warner’s blind side. He really, really had Kurt’s blind side. Martz thought so highly of Pace that he never hesitated to have Pace out there on the left flank, all alone, often taking on two pass rushers. Big O would slow the first one down, then slide and bump the second invader to give Warner that one more second he needed to release the throw.
Despite dropping back to pass more than 500 times in 1999, Warner was sacked only 29 times all season – the fifth-lowest total by an NFL quarterback that started at least 14 games that season. Pace allowed 1 and ½ sacks for the entire regular season. And with Pace blotting out the pass rush on his edge of the line, Martz was free to run more of those diabolical empty-backfield sets – the most in the league – because he knew that Pace had Warner’s back.
We should remember four other things about the 1999 Greatest Show Rams …
1) Coach Vermeil made 1999 possible by changing his ways as a coach. He pushed his team tremendously hard with long practices that had lots of hitting. The players complained, voiced their concerns to Vermeil, and told him that they were going into too many games with tired legs and slower speed. He listened. He adjusted. And in 1999, the Rams had much lighter practices with little hitting. They used more time to sharpen the Martz attack to become a more precise offense with better timing. That was an important development, and Vermeil gets the credit. Once he made the Rams tougher, and he relented at the right time and kept them fresh.
2) The Rams defense was significantly better than most people assumed. Sure, the offense gave the Rams defense a lot of big leads to protect, but that was also true in the 2000 season, but the 2000 St. Louis defense was loose and ineffective and couldn’t stop the other team from scoring. The 1999 Rams played strong defense. They led the league in sacks (57) and run defense. They allowed an opponent passer rating of 64.1, which was second best by a defense that season. Quarterbacks beat the Rams for only 19 touchdown passes and got picked off 29 times. Only three NFL defenses allowed fewer points than the Rams in 1999. D’Marco Farr, Kevin Carter, Mike Jones, Todd Lyght, Keith Lyle and all the others had a major role in shaping that team’s overall excellence.
3) The Rams were physically tougher than perceived. Media and opposing teams saw the beautiful offense with all of the moves and variations. You’d think these cynics were talking about a ballet company instead of football. But the feeling was out there: the Rams playing flag football. They were soft. And that was ridiculous. The ‘99 Rams were strong up front on both sides of the ball. To win the Super Bowl, the Rams had to take on two of the most physical, nasty and fastest defenses in the league in Tampa Bay and Tennessee. The Rams’ mental toughness matched the physical toughness.
4) Five of the 1999 Rams have been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Faulk, Warner, Bruce, Pace and Vermeil. Torry Holt will be next. He’ll make it six. I believe he will be voted in this year, and I hadn’t felt that way before.
But back that team’s strength as competitors. The Mike Jones tackle to preserve the Super Bowl conquest in an exhausting and draining game was all you needed to know about the heart of that 1999 defense … and the 1999 team as a whole. The coaches and players would not surrender. And Jones represented all of them by making a proud stand on the final few seconds of an epic eason that no one saw coming.
The Titans battered Warner in the first of that Super Bowl. He had damaged ribs, and spent halftime on the table in the locker room, receiving an IV to rehydrate and an injection to cover the pain. Vermeil told me he was shocked by Warner’s appearance. Kurt’s face was ashen-colored. He appeared weakened. Vermeil told Warner that he’d taken enough hits, so it was probably best for backup quarterback Paul Justin to start the second half. Warner would hear none of that. He sat up on the table, stared Vermeil straight in the eyes and said, “I’m playing. Period.”
And then Kurt went out and made history.
For the team, and for St. Louis, and for a fan base that had waited decades to have a team of this majesty and magnitude. A classic underdog story, so easy to embrace, but this was no fiction. The dream was real.
It was an exciting and thrilling experience for me to cover the 1999 Rams, the team with the unexpected quarterback and the unexpected season. To go from 4-12 in 1998 to a Super Bowl parade to cap the 1999 season was something to behold, and something that I’ll always treasure. This was a one-of-a-kind team, and a one-of-a-kind season, filled with a colorful cast of playmakers, characters, leaders, fantastic stories … and lots and lots of points – 609 in 19 games, including the postseason.
I remember having dinner with Frontiere late during the 1999 regular season, and she told me she had consulted with her astrologist to get a reading on the Rams’ chances of winning the Super Bowl. Georgia told me the astrologist gave her a full rundown of this and that … and then Georgia smiled and said, “You’ll have to wait for the answer.”
Georgia knew. I guess the astrologer was right. The planets were aligned for the 1999 Rams. But with all due respect, I don’t think the astrologer had anything in her charts about Kurt Warner. No one from the outside saw him coming. Or envisioned Michal Jones saving the day with such a history-making tackle. That said, this incredible rise of the 1999 Rams was something so special, it was something that came out of that sky with the moon and the stars and twinkling lights.
When Unitas led the Colts to the first NFL championship, he directed a couple of dramatic scoring drives late in the game, and Baltimore emerged from the twilight of Yankee Stadium with a 23-17 overtime win over the New York Giants. It was called the Greatest Game Ever Played.
When Warner led the Rams and St. Louis fans to their first and only championship together, Warner threw the winning touchdown in a moment of scintillating drama, and the Rams got out of Super Bowl 34 with a 23-16 win.
Hmmm.
Unitas 23-17 first championship.
Warner 23-16 … first championship.
Georgia Frontiere called the shot. I wasn’t around for the first Unitas championship. I was about six weeks away from entering this world, not quite ready to hatch, and my mother Betty Lee told me I was kicking during the entire Colts-Giants game. She told me that she knew I’d be a sportswriter, because I was so excited by that game, and I wasn’t even born yet.
Well, I was around for Warner’s first championship, and the Rams 1999 season was something that this sportswriter could never make up because no one would believe the story. So my mama was right: I became a sportswriter. And there was no greater moment for me as a sportswriter, in person, than watching Kurt Warner and the Rams win a Super Bowl championship. Once in a lifetime.
Thanks again for reading …
–Bernie
