Hall of Fame festivities to feature Arizona Cardinals
By Jim Koch
The NFL season gets underway with the Hall of Fame festivities, and the Arizona Cardinals will be playing a big part in it
The upcoming week will be a fun one for fans of the Arizona Cardinals. It begins on Thursday night, when we get to see our team face the Dallas Cowboys in the annual Hall of Fame game. The contest will mark the first time the Cards will have had live action since New Year’s Day, when they throttled the Los Angeles Rams to close out last season.
On Saturday night, perhaps the greatest quarterback in Cardinals’ franchise history, Kurt Warner, will enter into the Hall of Fame. It promises to be an emotional evening. Warner’s wife, Brenda, will have the honor of giving her husband’s induction speech.
Admittedly, the game between Arizona and Dallas will be nothing more than a glorified scrimmage. The Cards are playing it safe with quarterback Carson Palmer and wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, neither will be participating. Besides those two, any other Cardinal with even a semblance of an injury will probably be held out as well.
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There may not be a dry eye in the house while Brenda Warner is delivering her speech. Anyone aware of Warner’s story knows he did not have an easy road to the NFL. Brenda should certainly be ready and able to tell her soulmate’s tale in an entertaining and heartfelt way.
Warner started his career with the St. Louis Rams in 1998. He led the team to two Super Bowl appearances (winning one), before spending one campaign with the New York Giants.
His career in the desert lasted for five years. Warner guided Arizona to their only Super Bowl appearance following the 2008 season. His touchdown pass to Fitzgerald with under three minutes to play put the Cards ahead of the Pittsburgh Steelers, but only temporarily. They ended up losing Super Bowl XLIII by a score of 27-23.
The last Cardinal to be inducted into the Hall of Fame was cornerback Aeneas Williams in 2014. He spent 10 campaigns with the organization. Ironically, like Warner, Williams played with the Rams as well.