Why? Because this is Kurt Warner's story, remember.
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And then all of a sudden, the game came to life, and I had no clue that one day it would be the ending of a major motion picture."Īnd yet this isn't a movie about football as much as a movie about family. and I thought it was gonna be a clunker of a game.
"Holy cow, that day, when I came in," an emotional Johnson told the Erwins upon returning for the film, "I was a young announcer, and I thought I'd been given this gift of this great game of Ray Lewis versus Trent Green, and Trent Green gets hurt. Longtime Rams fans will appreciate cameos of familiar names like Marshall Faulk and Isaac Bruce, or recreated CBS play-by-play from Gus Johnson. Meanwhile, a culminating act involving Warner's famous Rams debut is smartly intercut with real game footage, reviving the unlikely stakes of a Midwestern castoff taking on Ray Lewis and the Ravens. The Erwin Brothers stage Warner's AFL stint with proper ridiculousness his arena debut plays like a kind of rural circus, with Kurt strolling past live farm animals on his way to the field, all while "Get Ready for This" blares '90s dance vibes. "American Underdog" certainly pays tribute to this real-life gridiron fantasy. He capped his breakout by leading his team to its first Super Bowl win in nearly 50 years. Forced into action with the Rams after starter Trent Green tore his ACL in the 1999 preseason, Warner proceeded to headline "The Greatest Show on Turf," posting historic numbers (4,353 yards, 41 touchdowns, 13 interceptions) that still look elite in today's pass-happy game. And I always was intrigued, like, 'I wanna know more about that story.'"Īnd then, just like that, he was the man. "I was sitting there on the sidelines," he says, "and I remember before the game, watching (Kurt) look at the stands, and seeing this beautiful, spiky-haired, tough-as-nails woman sitting there - his wife, Brenda. And it's not even what Erwin remembers most about that day. But Warner's journey had already been cemented in sports lore by that point. In the end, Brady got the best of the matchup, denying the Rams a dynasty and instead beginning one with the Patriots. Now here was Warner, fresh off his second MVP season, looking to snag his second Lombardi Trophy in three seasons.
"It was the epitome of any kind of underdog story." "(For) sports fans, it was always kinda the Holy Grail," Erwin says of Warner's improbable rise. Two years earlier, the latter became the talk of American sports, going from undrafted rookie to grocery clerk to Midwestern arena football star to Super Bowl MVP for one of the best offenses in league history. On one sideline was Tom Brady, then 24 in his first of many championships to come. Working as a cameraman for ESPN, he was about to capture a duel between future NFL legends. 3, 2002, Andrew Erwin was preparing to shoot the first and only Super Bowl of his career.