Warner finds his wings

Almost two years ago, when he met the current Arizona Cardinals coaching staff, Kurt Warner’s squeaky-clean reputation was intact.

Which is to say people thought he was thoroughly washed up.

That was the vibe the quarterback got, anyway.

“For two years, I’ve been fighting perceptions of what I can’t do,” Warner said. “I don’t believe this coaching staff had any expectations for me. It took time for me to convince them.”

It’s not as if Warner harbors any resentments about it, nor was he unhappy with the Cardinals. It’s just that he felt he needed to prove himself, needed to show his new coaches he still could play the way he did during his two seasons as the NFL’s most valuable player.

“It wasn’t what they’d say,” he said in a phone interview. “It was more just the way when you’d do something well there’s a surprise in people’s voice. . . . Even ownership and management, their voice said, ‘Wow! We didn’t think you had this in you. We didn’t think you had this left.’ ”

Left, right and center, Warner has been hitting Cardinals receivers all over the field. His completion rate of 69.8% was the league’s best through the first half of the season.

He heads into tonight’s game against San Francisco with more attempts, completions, yards and a better completion percentage than at this point in either of his MVP seasons in St. Louis.

The 5-3 Cardinals, meanwhile, are on pace to do something for the first time since they were in St. Louis: win a division title. The franchise hasn’t done that since 1975, when Jim Hart, Terry Metcalf & Co. led the St. Louis Cardinals to the NFC East crown. That team, too, was 5-3 at the midway point.

Thirty-three years later, Warner is running the show.

“Kurt Warner is throwing the ball everywhere,” said Mike Singletary, interim coach of the 49ers. “Their receivers are catching it all over. We have to handle it. They’re very hot right now.”

With the way Warner is playing, there’s no shame in Matt Leinart holding a clipboard as his understudy. The football world might have been surprised at the end of training camp when the switch to Warner was made, but Cardinals insiders weren’t shocked.

In a conference call with 49ers reporters last week, Cardinals Coach Ken Whisenhunt said Leinart, a former USC star, is making strides as a backup.

“I see him starting to make throws,” Whisenhunt said. “I see his recognition of things that have happened in practice and how he handles himself in the huddle continue to improve every day.”

But the focus is on the 37-year-old Warner, salt-and-pepper beard stubble and all, who looks as youthful as he has in years.

How’s he doing this at his age? He shrugs off those questions.

“You get to a certain point and everybody expects you to hit the wall,” he said. “Everybody doesn’t fall off the face of the Earth at the same time.”

So Warner is thriving and so is his franchise. It used to be that Cardinals games were quasi-home games for the visitors. That’s beginning to change. (Warner did confess he had to go to a silent snap count at home against Dallas, there were so many raucous Cowboys fans in the building.)

The recognition for the Cardinals is coming in . . . at a trickle.

“You watch highlight shows on ESPN and Arizona gets a mention,” Warner said. “Even though we’re 5-3, you’re hard pressed to get any national attention for the Cardinals. It’s crazy.

“I was talking to Troy Aikman, and he told me in eight years of announcing, he’d never covered a Cardinals game. It’s sort of a black hole. But that’s because we haven’t won.

“So much of it is fighting perceptions of who and what we are.”

That’s a fight Warner understands.

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sam.farmer@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Renaissance man

Kurt Warner’s numbers through eight games with Arizona rival those he put up in his MVP seasons with St. Louis in 1999 and 2001:

*--* 2008 -- Cardinals ATT. COM. PCT. YDS. TD INT 295 206 69.8 2,432 16 6 2001 -- Rams ATT. COM. PCT. YDS. TD INT 285 194 68.1 2,308 14 11 1999 -- Rams ATT. COM. PCT. YDS. TD INT 250 172 68.8 2,164 24 5 *--*

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Source: Arizona Cardinals

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Tonight’s game

San Francisco at Arizona

5:30, ESPN