Trent Green Ready to Start for Rams

It has taken Trent Green far longer to start a regular season game than he could possibly have dreamed in the spring of 1999, when he bolted the Washington Redskins and signed a four-year, $16 million free agent contract to come back to his childhood home and quarterback the St. Louis Rams.

Finally, Green will get his first start for the Rams on Sunday against the 49ers in San Francisco--playing in place of Kurt Warner, who is out four to six weeks after breaking the pinkie on his right throwing hand on Sunday in a 54-34 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.

“I’m very excited,” Green, 30, said Wednesday at the Rams’ practice facility. “It’s a great opportunity for me and a great opportunity for the football team to get back on track. Even though it’s my first start, it’s really not the way I wanted to get it, having gone through the same thing myself last year. That’s just the nature of this game.”

It was Warner, an unknown backup, who led the Rams to their first Super Bowl title when Green tore up his knee against San Diego in the third exhibition game of the ’99 season.

Green had played brilliantly in preseason, but a cheap shot by San Diego defensive back Rodney Harrison turned his season into a nightmare of pain and doubt that he ever would be able to perform at a high enough level to continue in the league.

At the time, the Rams were in total turmoil, with a major debate inside the organization about whether to bring in another tried and tested veteran quarterback or hand the controls over to Warner. He had learned his trade in the pinball-like Arena Football League, hardly a breeding ground for All-Pro talent.

Mike Martz, then the offensive coordinator and former quarterbacks coach with the Redskins who helped develop Green in Washington, convinced Coach Dick Vermeil to stick with Warner as the starter. Sixteen sweet victories later, the Rams were NFL champions, Warner was league MVP, Vermeil had retired, Martz was named coach and Green was stuck in the trainer’s room trying to get his knee healthy.

There is no panic over the quarterback position at the moment. Though Green has not totally recovered from reconstructive knee surgery, he remains a formidable presence. That became very clear against the Chiefs when he came off the bench and threw three touchdown passes, completing 15 of 21 for 205 yards and posting a quarterback rating of 122 for the game.

Before his injury, Warner was cruising along with a 111.6 passer rating, leading an explosive unit that was averaging 41.7 points and 497 yards total offense per game and heading into big-time record territory. Now, they’ll play the 49ers with an offensive line that has not been totally healthy the last few weeks. And running back Marshall Faulk has a slightly separated shoulder, though he said Wednesday he plans to play on Sunday.

The Rams clearly have all the confidence in the world in Green. All he has to do is get the ball to any of the several burners on his side.

“I feel more mobile,” Green said, surrounded by a phalanx of cameras and reporters in the team’s cafeteria. It was a scene he hadn’t really experienced since his days in Washington in 1998 when he started 15 games. “Over time, it’s just going to be better and better. I’m better now than I was a month ago, and in a month, I’ll be better than I am now.

“This is a big moment. It’s a division game, it’s a rivalry game and it’s an intense game and has been for years. It helped me to get in the Kansas City game as opposed to the mop-up role I had against San Diego earlier in the year. I’m very happy with where things are with my knee, and I think I’ll be fine.”

Warner, recovering from surgery in which two pins were placed in his broken finger on Tuesday, has strong words of encouragement for his replacement, who also happens to be one of his good friends.

“We’re not going to miss a beat,” he said, his right arm in a cast. “He’s had a lot of success. He’s great quarterback, a guy with experience in this offense and the league. Trent and I are very similar quarterbacks. We’re accurate, we sit in the pocket, we do a lot of the same things. A lot of our advantages come from the mental standpoint. I think the transition will be easy.”