National Football League

#TBT: The one-and-only Kurt Warner pre-draft scouting report

Published May. 14, 2015 12:13 p.m. ET

foxsports

ST. LOUIS -- After two league MVPs, a Super Bowl MVP, a Super Bowl ring and multiple Pro Bowls, it's still hard to believe people once overlooked Kurt Warner's NFL potential.

Well, most people.

Back in 1993, when Warner was quarterbacking the Panthers at the University of Northern Iowa, he caught the eye of a guy named Dan Shonka, a scout based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who worked for National Football Scouting. Shonka liked what he saw, but knew that because Warner started only one year in college, he needed more exposure to NFL teams. So, Shonka came up with a plan: He'd get Warner a gig at the upcoming NFL Scouting Combine as a "throwing quarterback," where he'd throw the ball to the actual invitees, such as the running backs and wide receivers, as they ran routes in front of NFL personnel. Shonka planned to do the same for another guy in his area -- Iowa's Paul Burmeister, who's now a sports broadcaster.

But when the verdict came down, the scout learned he'd gone one for two. Burmeister was allowed into the 1994 Combine; Warner had been nixed.

"(Burmeister) was the one they said I could bring in, and I couldn't bring in Warner, because nobody else wrote him as a prospect," Shonka recalls.

In the long run, of course, everything worked out. After a tumultuous journey, the undrafted Warner became the St. Louis Rams' starting quarterback in 1999 and began collecting enough hardware to make plenty of front offices look foolish for whiffing on him. Shonka, meanwhile, did what he could back in Warner's Panther days to boost interest among NFL teams that were National Football Scouting clients.

"I told everybody about him," he says.

Below is Shonka's scouting report on Warner from 1993 (via Ourlads.com, where Shonka currently works). Rams fans will recognize what Shonka highlights as the quarterback's best attribute: arm strength.