Kurt Warner | Pro Football Hall of Fame QB

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Information is key for things like that and knowing what you're dealing with and how they operate. Being aware of the way your mind works in certain situations has been the most important thing for me. Right now, we are pleased to welcome the Hall of Famer and Analyst, Kurt Warner, to the show. It's always a privilege to connect. And just for fun, let's start with the kicker. He was out there, Dustin was, with an injured hammy and he still made four field goals. Does he earn your respect as a quarterback if he plays injured?

You know, they're always a little bit odd, a little bit weird. But yes, if you do that, you earn a little bit more respect from us. I mean, playing injured and wondering if you're going to go out there and then to kick four field goals and the game winner, I mean, yeah, you learn a little bit more respect from all of us. But we're all still kind of looking at him from side-eye, just going, ah, he's still a kicker. I heard before the game that you talked about Russell Wilson and the Broncos offense as looking uncomfortable, just not in a rhythm. And I had such high hopes when they started this game.

It looked like they'd finally found some of that rhythm, but it kind of petered out. So as a quarterback, how do you get everybody on the same page? Well, I mean, I think it's a hard thing, you know, first and foremost, because as we were talking about in our pregame is that you can have two offenses where, you know, you look at a particular play and you go, oh, this play is very similar to what I ran in Seattle. Yet there's always different nuances that, you know, the coaches teach it a little bit differently. It's called a little bit differently.

Maybe the depth of a route is a little bit different. And so although it, you know, to a degree feels like, oh, okay, this is familiar to me, there's all always little differences that play in. And then you have to add in the whole fact of, oh, now we've got to get into a game. And what is this guy going to do in a game if he gets this look or what's he going to do if he gets that look? And so drawing it up on a board and on paper is completely different than the scenarios you face in game.

And those are all the things that add to getting comfortable. It's a quarterback being able to visualize a play, know exactly what everybody's going to do, how it ties into the drop that he's going to make. And then, okay, maybe we're going to run this with four different receivers. Now, what are they all going to do when we see this scenario?

Sometimes that scenario is seen for the first time in game. And now you've got to go, okay, what's he going to do? I'm going to throw it here because I think he's going to do this. And then if he doesn't, now what happens?

You know, now they look at you and go, what's the idiot doing? Like, why is he throwing it there? You know, the guy's going somewhere else. So those are all the different things that we kind of think, oh, the quarterback's really good. And he's probably run this play a number of times. So he's just going to pick up where he left off when he comes to another team.

And it's just not that easy. I've always believed, you know, having played in some different systems that it takes about 12 months, like a full year in a system. So you can, you know, cause normally when you go into a new system, you kind of translate back. So, you know, think about, you know, learning a new language, right?

When you learn Spanish and you know, you say some word in Spanish, the first thing you do is say, okay, what is that in English? Okay. And think about trying to play a game of football when you get a call into the huddle. And the first thing you do is go, okay, what, what does that calculate to when I was in Seattle?

Okay. You know, you have to think about the game instead of just reacting and visualizing what you're seeing and all of that stuff goes in when you're learning a new offense, no matter how good you are. I mean, Tom Brady went through it, you know, we went through half a season in Tampa his first year going, oh my gosh, are these guys going to be any good? You know, even with the greatest quarterback of all time. And so those are things that fans just kind of expect, you know, to come easy and to be natural for guys.

But it really does take a long time to be able to get to the point where you can just settle in, be comfortable as we're talking about and play football. You mentioned on the Westwood One broadcast that the Chargers, you had some higher expectations for them considering that their quarterback along with their head coach, now they've been together for a couple of years. So what do you see with them that's holding them back a little bit? I just, and I've seen it with a lot of teams this year, is that when you watch them, you can't necessarily put your finger on, okay, what's off here? But a lot of teams, their offenses look choppy. So it doesn't flow, you know, like you don't see them, you know, get in and make one of these drives where it's just kind of like bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, and it just works.

And now we're in the end zone. And that's kind of what it looks like to me with the Chargers is that they've got a really good quarterback, they've got really good players across the board, but it just looks choppy. You know, just like tonight, they could never really get anything going and establish any kind of a drive and create big plays down the field. And I can't really put my finger on, okay, what is it that's holding them back and stopping them from being able to do that? But, you know, I've been a little disappointed with their offense because it has been choppy and probably more disappointed until tonight with their defense, you know, JC Jackson, you know, comes over and Khalil Mack. And, you know, you already have Bosa and you have Durin. I mean, you just look at these guys on paper and you're like, these guys should be dominating with what they have offensively and defensively. And it just hasn't worked out like that up to this point.

And so, you know, I'm going to continue to watch and try to see if I can figure out what it is. But the biggest thing is you just want this team to develop that killer instinct. For so many years, the kind of MO of the Chargers is, okay, every game is going to be close and then they're probably going to lose the close game.

And, you know, you just want to see them when they get up on teams to be able to kind of, you know, put the hammer down and finish teams off because they've got all these great players and we just haven't seen that yet. Tom Brady told us he's seeing a lot of bad football around the league. So now through six weeks, would you agree with that or no?

I would. And that's kind of what I mean when I was talking about being choppy. Yeah, is that you just don't see teams coming out and clicking on all cylinders. You know, we've got a couple of them. Philly, I mean, looks really, really good. Jalen Hurts playing great. I think Kansas City and Buffalo, we've seen some really good things from them. But yeah, I mean, the Packers, you know, are struggling.

The Bucks are struggling. You know, we've talked about these two teams tonight, the Raiders. I mean, all these teams that you feel like have the pieces aren't playing very good football. And we were actually talking about it, I think, off the air tonight was just, and I think Austin Eckler, you know, actually mentioned it in our postgame interview, how he doesn't, he didn't play in preseason. And you're seeing so many more guys and so many more quarterbacks not playing in preseason.

And you wonder what kind of effect that has on, you know, these teams. And, you know, I think back to the beginning of the season and you go, hey, Patrick Mahomes played a lot in preseason. Josh Allen played some. He didn't play a lot, but he played some. Jalen Hurts played, you know, and you start to wonder if some of the chopping, especially early in the season, has to do with these guys not playing together. And especially if you put guys in a new situation and Russell Wilson doesn't play and Derek Carr doesn't play with Devontae Adams in a new offense. And you start to wonder, oh, maybe that has a big effect on, you know, how they come out of the blocks early and how long it takes them to really find the rhythm. We're so excited to spend a few minutes with Kurt Warner, fresh off Westwood One broadcast of Monday Night Football, another overtime thriller, this one from L.A. And he's also a Hall of Fame QB, so good to pick his brain a little bit here on After Hours, CBS Sports Radio.

Is there no way to fix it other than just reps? Because I guess that's the million dollar question, right? How do you get there? Well, I think, you know, for me, I've always felt like so kind of visualize this is that you could take three really good quarter three Hall of Fame quarterbacks and you could draw a play up on the board and you could have one Hall of Fame quarterback that loves it. One that says, you know, it's OK, I can deal with that. And then one that goes, I hate that play. And you might look at that and go, how is that possible for three really good quarterbacks to not, you know, all feel the same way about a particular play. But we all see the game differently.

We play the game differently mentally. And I've always felt it was so important for an offense coordinator or offensive play designer or play caller to see the game the same way as the quarterback or to learn how their quarterback sees the game so they can create plays and call plays accordingly. And so that, to me, becomes a big part of this process with, you know, these new coaches coming in with these new quarterbacks and, you know, just thinking, hey, I'm going to take this offense that I ran in New England and we're going to run it in Las Vegas and it's going to be seamless. And then you have Derek Carr going, I don't know if I'm really feeling these plays. They don't really make sense to how I see the game.

And then there's that, you know, lack of continuity. And so I think that becomes a big part of it is as, you know, they were trying to install my offense and you're trying to install it for this quarterback and you're designing new plays each week is being able to develop that understanding of the guy behind center, the guy with the ball in his hands on every play. How does he see the game?

How does he process these different plays? And I've got to find a way to build my offense around the way he sees the game. Otherwise, it's always going to feel like it's choppy and it's always going to be like, you know, the quarterback is fighting these plays and fighting to make them work because they're not fully competent in it because they're not seeing it or it's not being built the way that they play the game. Sounds like a friendship or a marriage relationship. Got to figure out how to communicate and get on the same page, right?

I think there's a little of that for sure. And then you have to, just like a relationship, you got to figure out who's going to win out in the end, right? If you've got, you know, if you've got a coordinator that really likes what he's doing and then you have a quarterback that doesn't like it and wants to do some other stuff, who gets to win out in the end? And I'm always a believer that the guy on the field has to win out in the end.

You know, my wife's always got to win out in the end, but I can't, I can't feel like I'm always going to be the winner and it's going to be my way is that you got to figure that out. But I, I just don't believe any team's ever going to be really, really good until you build around your quarterback and you find a system that fits him in and you see very few quarterbacks that really Excel from one system to another Peyton Manning did. But if you go and talk to the people that were around that Peyton basically took his offense and ultimately it became the Broncos offense. You could say the same about me going from St. Louis to Arizona is it took some time, but eventually the offense that we developed was very similar to what we did in St. Louis because we were built that way. And because it was how I felt I played my best football. And when we got there, we started having success. And so that becomes a key component with these quarterbacks and with these new coaches that are coming in to be with these new quarterbacks is making sure that it fits what that quarterback does well.

And I think that's the only way to truly have great success. Big topic around the NFL the last couple weeks and we had another couple of instances on Monday Night Football roughing the passer. So as a quarterback, Kurt, how would you define it or how should it be defined?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's really, really hard. I mean, you know, I give our officials so much credit to see all the things that they see at the speed of the game and to get so many things right there that, you know, the roughing the passer becomes a really, really hard one. Because, you know, you're looking at so many different things and we've got rules in place to protect the quarterback. And I think we all understand why because it's a quarterback driven league and we want those guys out there.

We want our best players out there. But it's really hard to see like we had one tonight. I'm not sure who was that got called for it. But as he was rushing, he got hit from the side by an offensive lineman that was knocking him to the ground as he was trying to tackle the quarterback and ends up hitting Russell Wilson, you know, semi low. And as soon as they see a quarterback get hit low, the flag comes out.

Right. You know, the Grady Jarrett hit on Tom Brady. You know, after what happened with Tua, I remember watching that play the first time and I thought I saw that, you know, that that's the speed of the swing by Jarrett as he was taking him down. And I'm like, OK, this is a penalty.

Just it's coming. And then, you know, Jarrett seemed to kind of like let up at the end and kind of lay Tom Brady down on the serve without without throwing him down like I thought he was going to. So I thought the same thing in the moment, like there's a penalty that is swinging him down.

We just saw what happened to Tua. They're throwing the flag here. And then the end of it happened.

And then I thought, well, hold on, stop. Don't throw the penalty because I don't think it was that bad when it was all said and done. And so we're asking an official to see all of that where I'm sure he saw the swing and everything went through his mind and that flag was coming out and didn't really have a chance to kind of take it all in and go, well, should that really have been a penalty or not?

And I think, you know, the Chris Jones thing, very similar. Maybe didn't see the ball coming out and didn't see all of that aspect and just saw the full body weight fall on Derek Carr. And that's by the letter of the law. It's a penalty. So I think we're trying to get it right. I think it's going to be hard to get it right with the rules.

And and I don't really know what the answer is. I mean, I would love for them to review it and to have somebody really look at it and go, should that or should that not be a penalty here? But I don't I don't really get the sense that we're even thinking about or considering that. So now we're going to be subject to the speed of the game and all the things that are happening in the letter of the law. And I think we're going to have a lot more roughing the passer penalties that we're all going to sit back and go. That's that's just a football play, but all in the vein of trying to do the right thing and protect that position, which I think every one of us completely understands.

Kurt Warner is with us here after hours on CBS Sports Radio. Speaking of Tom Brady yesterday and really any time he does it when he gets angry or is emotional and animated on the sidelines, there's a video that captures it for the whole world to see. And yesterday it was him yelling choice words at his offensive lineman. How often does that kind of thing happen? I mean, now it's scrutinized with cameras everywhere. But does that happen a lot where guys kind of get fired up and yell at each other on the sidelines?

It does. It happens a lot. And I think it probably happens the most between quarterbacks and offensive linemen. You know, when when we're getting hit or, you know, we don't feel they're doing their job because obviously we can't do ours without them doing theirs. That sometimes we've got to get on.

And we you know, we've got to get after him. And sometimes it happens in the huddle. Sometimes it happens on the sideline.

But yeah, I think that's you know, that's a normal course of action. You know, in a lot of football games when, you know, we're not having the success that we want. The first group that you go over to is the offensive line.

You know, whether we're not running the football well enough. Come on, guys. Like, you got to pick it up.

Or if I'm getting hit a lot and you know, and you're getting beat up and it's like, OK, you know, come on. We got it. We got to figure this out.

And so I don't know. I mean, I don't really think a lot about interactions that happen on the sidelines. You know, especially when they happen here and there, because it's part of football.

And, you know, my kids say that all the time. They bring up one incident where I was yelling at my coach coming off the field. And every time something happened, they're like, hey, you remember that time? That time that you were yelling at your coach?

Yeah. You know, that was terrible that, you know, like they bring it up all the time. And, you know, I didn't get into those kind of situations very often, but sometimes it happens like that and you get after it. And I think the biggest thing is just to go, hey, you know, I respect, you know, guys that get on me or coaches that get on me because I understand they're just trying to get the best out of me. And I want them to understand the same thing, that I'm not attacking a person.

I'm just attacking a problem. And we've all got to look at it that way. And, you know, I wonder if it became a bigger deal yesterday because of, you know, Tom Brady and some of the situations that he's gone through with 11 days off and then going to Robert Kraft's wedding.

And, you know, you just wonder if it gets elevated a little bit because of those things where really in the big picture of anybody that's played ball or anybody's played offensive line or quarterback would look at that and go, oh, that happened a million times. That's normal. Yeah. Gotcha. So before I let you go, I have to tell you, I learned the term hot options by listening to you tonight.

I had not heard that term before, so that was cool. And I don't know how you have time for it, but obviously you started QB Confidential in addition to all the other things that you've got going on out there. If I were to check out QB Confidential, would I learn more terms like hot options?

What would I be in for? Oh my gosh, you would learn all kinds of stuff. So I've got a couple different things. I've got QB Confidential.com, which is a teaching website. So that has everything from like you're talking about terminology, what I call blackboard breakdowns. It's got playbook design. It's got film study. It's got technique stuff.

So that's really for anybody. I've got lots of people that use it, but it's a real in-depth teaching tool. And then I've also got my QB Confidential YouTube page where I do film study every single week and you're going to find a lot of that stuff. You know, 25, 30 minutes on, you know, the Chicago Bears today. And so it's breaking down the game and all of its elements from the quarterback perspective.

So there's a couple different means of being able to use it. But yes, you will learn a lot of different terminology and things that we talk about as quarterbacks. Oh, it sounds so deliciously nerdy. It sounds amazing. It is football nerdy.

If you're a football nerd, you need to see it every single day. You can find Kurt on Twitter at Kurt13Warner. Where did you get the caricature with the lightsaber, by the way? The Cardinals actually posted that about a year ago. And so I just stole it from them.

And yeah, OB, Kurt, no B or something like that. So I thought it was pretty sweet. So I just made it my home page on Twitter. It's perfect. So check him out there on Twitter.

It's QBConfidential.com, KurtWarner.org. And it's always a great privilege to have you on the show, Kurt, especially when you've already worked like 12 hours a day. So thank you so much for a couple of minutes. No problem. Always my pleasure. Great talking to you. How's your mental health?

I'm listening with Billie Eilish. I feel like I spent a lot of time thinking about happiness and how it's just like it fluctuates. And everyone thinks if you're one thing, you're going to be that forever and you're never going to be anything else. And it's really not true. Like happiness is temporary, but also so is like misery and things just like morph and change. It just doesn't stay. It goes up and goes down and things change. And like that's how life works. Explore more at I'mListening.org. How's your mental health?

I'm listening with Billie Eilish. I feel like I spent a lot of time thinking about happiness and how it's just like it fluctuates. And everyone thinks if you're one thing, you're going to be that forever and you're never going to be anything else. And it's really not true. Like happiness is temporary, but also so is like misery and things just like morph and change. It just doesn't stay. It goes up and goes down and things change.

And like that's how life works. Explore more at I'mListening.org. Available on the Odyssey app or wherever you listen to your podcast.