Kurt Warner on his journey to the big screen, and a very unique 2021 NFL season | You Pod to Win the Game

Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson and Hall-of-Fame quarterback discuss the unusual 2021 NFL season in which zero teams have earned the title of elite. Will the Super Bowl just come down to who gets hot in the playoffs? Warner then explains what it is like to see your life story played by someone else. Hear the full conversation on the You Pod to Win the Game podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen. American Underdog can be seen in theaters everywhere on Christmas Day.

Video transcript

CHARLES ROBINSON: Obviously, you're not playing, but you're still in the thick of the game every single week. This season has been crazy. I mean, everyone's looked at the season, it's so difficult to pin down who's great, what's the dominant team? Every time we seem to zero in on someone, they suffer a loss, and we're like, how did that just happen? In the years that you've really been entrenched, I mean, you're working on two decades, beyond two decades here in the NFL world, have you seen anything like this? Or are we living something now we haven't seen before? Or are we just forgetting?

KURT WARNER: No, I don't think we've seen much like this. You know, normally you do have those handful of teams that you go, OK, they're going to play consistent football, they're going to be there in the end, and then, you know, whoever can play better in that moment will win. You're right. This year, I almost feel like, A, there's no great team. That you know, nobody has played consistently great to the point where we can go, oh, lock them in to get at least this far. So I don't think we have that.

And I'm almost to the point now-- and I was interviewing Aaron Donald a couple of weeks ago and I asked him like, are you a team that kind of says, OK, this is what we are. We're talented enough to win a championship. And it's not really what happens in the regular season, it's about, can we put three or four games together of really good football and make it to the Super Bowl or win the Super Bowl? And I feel like that's the way we've got to look at the league.

It's like, you know, can the Bills beat anybody? Yeah. Can the Titans beat anybody? Yeah. Can the Chiefs beat anybody? Yeah, they all can. And we can say the same thing on the NFC side. But the question to me is, when you get to the playoffs, who can put those four games together? Because you can't have a clunker. You have a clunker, you're out of this thing. So who can put four good games together because they have the team to be able to do it. And I don't know. I mean, none of us know who that's going to be, right?

I mean, I don't know who's going to have the number one seed. I don't know who's going to be seventh. I don't know who's going to win any division right now. So ultimately, it's going to come down to somebody's going to have to get on a run and get hot at the right time. And the teams that do that will be the teams that probably end up in the Super Bowl.

CHARLES ROBINSON: If anybody knows about playing his best football at the very right moment, it is this guy we're talking to. I want to talk to you about "American Underdog." but I want to get into it. I actually have a little story that even Kurt doesn't know about. And this will tell you-- my experience with you is you've always been one of the most unassuming greatest players that the league has ever seen. And I can tell you, so 2016 I board a Southwest Airlines flight to go fly to Super Bowl 50. I'm 6 foot 4, almost 6 foot 5, right, so I always look for the exit row.

I get on, I do this, you know, I look down the aisle. I'm like, man, there's a guy in the exit row on the best seat. I'm like, oh, man, who is this guy? Walking back as I'm getting closer, snapping, you know, I think this was like a layover on my way out to San Jose. And I look and I'm like, that's Kurt Warner sitting in the exit row seat on a Southwest flight.

I'm like this guy is a year removed from being-- one year away from being a Pro Football Hall of Famer, Super Bowl champ, two-time MVP like Super Bowl MVP like just I thought, this is who this guy is, and this is why America got to love the genuine-- you know, I think most people think, Kurt Warner? I'm thinking private jet. Like you know. No, Kurt's in the row of the Southwest flight.

I think that you being as genuine away from the field, you being a person that people I think reflect themselves in really is something that's very authentic. What is it like to see your life in a biopic? All of a sudden it's-- I mean, it has to be a little surreal to be like, wow, this is like literally a movie about my own life.

KURT WARNER: It's obviously a tremendous honor to have your movie made. It's extremely humbling. What I know is that there's a lot of people that have accomplished great things in a lot of fields over the years. But not all of them get a movie made about them. And so to have a movie made about your life is incredibly surreal when you actually see it on the big screen. You see other people playing you. You're seeing moments from your life that-- I don't want to say you forgot about-- but moments that were so long ago that, you know, in life, you take one foot in front of the other, and you take one day at a time, and you're looking forward more than you're looking back.

But to be able to experience those moments again and feel those emotions and remember what those times felt like is extremely surreal to go through that. But at the end of the day, Brenda and I, when we got to the NFL and had some success, one of the things that we always said was, you know, we believe that a big part of this journey is ultimately going to be being able to share that with other people. Share how it shaped us, share what we went through, be able to connect to people.

A big part of our charity work over the years has always been, hey, we went through this. Let's design a program that connects to that because we can empathize with those people because we've been there before. And so that's kind of the neatest part, is that we always felt our story had the possibilities of connecting with a lot of people. And now we've made a movie that I believe does justice to that in a lot of different ways, and has a chance to really connect with people from different places that find themselves in different circumstances right now. And so we're really, really proud of that.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Well, I mean, I can't think of a better movie to see during the holiday season. I'm big on movies about perseverance. I'm particularly big on movies where, as I said, the person that you've-- I think people have always seen when people ask you, what's this person like? Anything I'd ever say about Kurt Warner is, he's authentic.

What you see, whether it's in interviews versus I stood in baggage claim with the guy, he was the same guy. Like it's literally who he is. I appreciate you taking the time with us. I wish you great success with the movie. And again, I knew it. We all we all stood there for years saying this has got to be a movie. It's a movie, and I'm hoping everybody checks it out.

KURT WARNER: Charles, I appreciate it. I appreciate the kind words, and I'll try to continue to live up to that as we move forward.