Kurt Warner on Super Bowl LVI: Joe Burrow a natural leader; Matthew Stafford can silence doubters
Kurt Warner: "Every time I get a chance to cover the Super Bowl, I think to myself, 'If I could just have one more of these'"; watch Super Bowl LVI between the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams, live on Sky Sports NFL from 10pm, Sunday; Kick-Off at 11.30pm
Last Updated: 10/02/22 5:29pm
Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner knows a thing or two about the Super Bowl, having played in three of them and winning one during a remarkable NFL career.
Warner was undrafted out of college in 1994 and went from being a supermarket shelf-stacker to a Super Bowl winner with the Rams in the 1999 season.
On top of his former team being back in the Super Bowl - the Los Angeles Rams taking on the Cincinnati Bengals, live on Sky Sports NFL from 10pm on Sunday - Warner can relate to the sudden rise of the Bengals, as his Rams team were the last to turn a four-win season into a Super Bowl run the following year.
Warner, joining Inside The Huddle (every night, 9pm, Sky Sports NFL in the run-up to Super Bowl LVI), said his Super Bowl success "feels like a long time ago", before adding: "Every time I get a chance to cover the Super Bowl, I think to myself, 'If I could just have one more of these'."
Giving some advice to the two teams ahead of Sunday, Warner said it's hard not to get swept up in the magnitude of the moment.
"It has become such a spectacle," he said. "All of the build-up during the week - there is no normalcy - you're in another city, isolated in a hotel room, doing only football stuff and interviews, telling everyone why you're going to win.
"That's all you live, 24/7, and so that's when it starts to lift the magnitude of the game - 'this is bigger, different than everything else'.
"Once you get to kick-off, or have the ball in your hands, you forget about all of that - that is, until the last two minutes.
"Maybe I say that because all of my Super Bowls came down to the last two minutes; but you get to that moment - maybe you have the lead, or you're trailing - and you once again feel the magnitude of the situation through the end of the game.
"You have those two minutes to stamp your spot in the history of our great game.
"You never want the weight of that moment to make you do something you wouldn't normally do. You try to normalise it as best you can."
Warner also spoke highly of both quarterbacks set to battle it out on Super Bowl Sunday, highlighting the scrutiny that Matthew Stafford has had to overcome since joining the Rams, after 12 years without a playoff win for the Detroit Lions, and the belief that Joe Burrow inspires in his Bengals team-mates.
Warner on Burrow
"[Belief] it's vital. You're naturally in a leadership position, specifically when you walk in the huddle - it's all eyes on you.
"You have got to believe in yourself and be able to show the rest of the guys the possibilities that are out there for you.
"You have to do it through the thick and the thin - when you're only winning four games, and saying 'we're going to turn this thing around'. Guys have to look you in the eye and be able to believe it.
"I go back to my last Super Bowl [2008 season, Arizona Cardinals], when I threw that interception returned for a 101-yard touchdown at the end of the first half, I had to walk back into the huddle, with everyone looking right at me and I had to go 'believe me, we can still win this game'.
"You have to lead in that manner, and I believe Joe Burrow has done a great job of staying very even-keeled throughout all of this, whether that be the four-win season, the injury he had last year and then his comeback.
"He stays in the moment, the AFC Championship game is a great example. Down 21-3, all eyes were on him - what are you going to do? But he wasn't panicking, he was like 'relax, just follow me'.
"It's just natural that, in that position, people are going to look at you, because you have the ball in your hands on every snap. And Burrow has done an incredible job - especially for a young guy, who hasn't been there very much.
"He raises his game to another level in the big moments. That's exactly what you need from your leaders and your quarterback."
Warner on Stafford
"I talked to Matthew recently and tried to hit on that: 'what would this mean to you, after everything you've been through and the scrutiny you've dealt with - that you hadn't won a single playoff game?'
"He really kind of shrugged it off. I wanted to know if there was that chip on his shoulder, but what I got more was the feeling that he was relishing the moment he's in now.
"Nothing against Detroit, and that situation. He wanted to bring them a championship and make them a winner, but he's in such a great place and with an unbelievable opportunity in front of him.
"All of the expectation coming in was 'Super Bowl or bust'; they're in the Super Bowl! All of those expectations, he has lived up to them.
"He hadn't won a playoff game. Josh Allen was incredible in the playoffs, Patrick Mahomes too for two games and a half, and so I believe they overshadowed Stafford a little bit, but Stafford played incredibly in the big moments.
"He has really carried them in each of their games. The first game [against the Arizona Cardinals], he was nearly perfect, in the second [against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers], he bailed them out after a bunch of other mistakes by the team, and in their last game [against the San Francisco 49ers], they were down by 10 in the fourth quarter and on three-straight drives he leads them down the field.
"In the biggest moments, the ball in his hands, they've had to count on him, and he has stepped up every single time.
"Like all of us, he wants to win this one to finish this thing off. There will then be no more questions about Matthew Stafford, 'can he get it done?'
"I think he has already answered those questions, but he has a real chance to say, 'that's over, that's done.'"
Watch Super Bowl LVI live on Sky Sports NFL and Main Event from 10pm on Sunday, February 13, with current players Kirk Cousins and Calais Campbell, and Hall of Famer Warren Moon among the guests joining Neil Reynolds for 90 minutes of build-up to the big game.
