January 27, 2009
Cardinals’ Super Bowl Trip Has Leinart Studying Again
By KAREN CROUSE
TEMPE, Ariz. — Matt Leinart wants you to know he is fine. Really. “I’m great,” he said last week. “I get to go to the Super Bowl.”
Leinart, the Cardinals’ third-year quarterback, smiled as he spoke. But seeing the veteran Kurt Warner lead the Arizona franchise out of the desert has to have been hard, and later in the 10-minute interview he said, “It’s a weird thing.”
If Leinart feels like the father of the bride watching another man walk her down the aisle, there is a reason. Before Arizona became the 37-year-old Warner’s team, it was entrusted to the 25-year-old Leinart, the franchise’s future and his own entwined like the laces on a football.
Drafted at No. 10 over all by the Cardinals in 2006, Leinart made 16 starts in his first two years before he was sidelined in the fifth game of the 2007 season by a broken collarbone and supplanted by Warner.
The Cardinals’ coach, Ken Whisenhunt, named Leinart the starter last January but changed his mind after observing both quarterbacks in the 2008 preseason. Warner infused the Cardinals — and his career — with new life in 2008, passing for more than 4,000 yards and 30 touchdowns. In three playoff games, his passer rating is 112.1.
Leinart was limited to four cameo appearances, in which he threw 29 passes. A day after the Cardinals’ 32-25 victory against the Philadelphia Eagles in the National Football Conference championship game, his voice was hoarse from cheering.
It was hardly the role Leinart envisioned when he came to Arizona with a Heisman Trophy, at least a share of two national championships, a Hollywood publicist and a celebrity entourage after a standout career at Southern California.
“I know that I’ll look back 10 years from now and say this year was a great learning year for me, a great steppingstone to get to where I need to go,” Leinart said.
He had just finished a weight-lifting session and was wearing a gray nylon U.S.C. pullover. He spoke at his locker before hurrying off to a team meeting. “I’ve been ready to go every week,” Leinart said. “I’ve been prepared. I’ve got a big future ahead of me. I’ll be ready to play when my number’s called.”
It can be a rude awakening, leaving the cocoon of college for the N.F.L. Big-time college football programs operate much like the old Hollywood studio system, protecting their stars and projecting to the public a carefully crafted image of their leading men.
