They old saying goes good guys finish last , but in the case of Kurt Warner good guys finish first and sometimes they do it more than once! Now I am a Steelers fan from back in the 60's when I lived in the Hill district on Iowa Street and got my "dirty bird" wings with Chris Chandler, Jamal Anderson and Mike V in 90's and 2000's. But Kurt's story is one that makes you like a guy because of who he is off the field and that's why I will not be mad at him if he beats my beloved Steelers. It is easy to root for good people because they will reward you with what they do everyday and not just on Super Bowl Sunday.

This story first appeared in Wednesday’s edition of Sporting News Today. If you are not receiving Sporting News Today, the only daily digital sports newspaper, sign up today for free.

TAMPA — So you’re a young quarterback, and you want to go to the Hall of Fame?

Here’s the path beaten for you:

Get drafted, work your way in a position to start and then lead the team for more than a decade. Win Super Bowl(s), set records, book trip to Canton, Ohio.

Tom Brady? Check.

Peyton Manning? Check.

Ben Roethlisberger? Check back, but he’s doing about 100 mph on that road right now.

And then you have Kurt Warner. He was undrafted, he was dumped by the Packers, he had to pass through the Arena League and NFL Europe to get back to the big stage, and that was just before his first incarnation as superstar quarterback.

His story might be a great one — from the HyVee in Cedar Falls, Iowa, to the heights of NFL — but it’s not easy to find peers to Warner’s accomplishments. The manner they’ve come in is just that unusual.

If you skim off the top, you’d conclude he should be in the Hall of Fame. He has two league MVPs and guided two bottom-feeders to three Super Bowl appearances, winning one with a chance at a second ring with a second team Sunday. He is 8-2 in playoff games, giving him a winning percentage that rivals the two greatest of alltime — Bart Starr (9-1, .900) and Brady (14-3, .824).

Warner also has completed 65.4 percent of his passes over his career. His career passer rating is 93.8, fourth all-time, just above Brady’s. Warner has thrown for 182 touchdowns, 17 more than Troy Aikman, 22 more than Joe Theismann, 29 more than Roger Staubach and 30 more than Starr.

And Hall of Fame voters, who take championships seriously when considering a quarterback’s candidacy, could be sold by the result of Sunday’s game vs. Pittsburgh. Some guys in the league, truth be told, already are.

“He’s a Hall of Fame player, no question about it,” said Pittsburgh defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau. “He throws the prettiest pass of anybody I’ve ever seen. And his accuracy, he would compete with any and compare with any of the great quarterbacks that were noted for putting the ball in the right spot at the right time.

“And Kurt’s story is a special story, too. He’s a Hall of Fame quarterback, easy, for me.”

But maybe not so much for everyone else.

The trouble with Warner is the majority of his accomplishments came in three seasons spread out over a 10-year period. In those years — 1999, 2001 and 2008 — he started 16 games. But in zero of the other seven years did Warner start more than 11 games, and there’s a fairly large period, from 2002-06, in which he looked more like Danny Kanell than Danny Marino.

“The thing you have to look at when you look at Hall of Famers is their body of work over the course of their whole career,” said Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon, who took his own winding road, through Canada of all places, to induction. “Consistency has a lot to do with it. Kurt had some great, great years with St. Louis, those first three or four years, then he all of a sudden fell off the map.

“But he’s back out of it again, and I think there’s something to be said about that.” Moon cited the Hall of Fame cases of Gale Sayers (successful) and Terrell Davis (unsuccessful) for the sake of comparison. Both had electric starts to their careers, then fell off a cliff.

Dallas Morning News football columnist Rick Gosselin, a Hall voter since the 1980s and recipient of the HOF’s McCann Award, evoked the name of John Henry Johnson, who was inducted in his 16th year of eligibility and ninth year as a finalist.

Johnson was a fairly good player early in his career but posted his best seasons in his ninth and 11th seasons, as a 33- and 35-yearold running back. Like Warner now, Johnson was with his third team by then, playing for the Steelers after starting his career with the 49ers and then going to the Lions.

Maybe it boils down, in the end, to what voters remember most.

With Johnson, the voters remembered how he flourished at an age when running backs rarely do, rather than how he flummoxed through his 20s.

So do you remember the Warner of ’99, ’01 and ’08, years he carried teams to Super Bowls and compiled this cumulative stat line: 1,101-of-1,643 for 13,766 yards, 107 touchdowns, 49 interceptions and a 102.1 passer rating?

Or do you better recall Warner’s other seven years, when he completed 1,226-of-1,914 passes for 14,825 yards, 75 touchdowns, 65 interceptions and an 86.6 passer rating?

And if you take both into account, how do you balance it?

Ask Warner’s favorite receiver, Larry Fitzgerald, and he says, “No question. To be able to lead two teams to a Super Bowl, you look at his numbers: His accomplishments are phenomenal. He just deserves to be in.”

If only it were that simple.

Staff writer Albert Breer covers the NFL for Sporting News. E-mail him at abreer@sportingnews.com.

This morning on the TV show "Morning Joe" hosted by Joe Scarborough on MSNBC, the question was raised that it is possible Bernie Madoff could serve less time than Michael Vick. Furthermore, is it fair for Madoff to continue to live in his 7 million dollar condo on Park Ave in NYC given his crime to which he has admitted guilt, as documented to date. Do you think this is fair? Lastly, Bernie Madoff was recently caught mailing 1 million dollars worth of jewelry to family members in order to avoid confiscation by authorities. His financial scam has hurt thosuands of investors and beneficiaries of charities. However, his cooperation with the financial police could get him a "deal" for telling on his conspirators. Please comment on what should be the appropriate penalty.

Much has been made of the current and planned use of government funding as part of the economic "recovery or bailout" process. I would like to submit the following might be a good use of funds for the new administration to consider.

The AP has just published a study regarding corporate compensation and has implied the use of "proceeds" from the Great Bank Bailout of 2008 has gone to support similar behavior. The headlines will cause dramatic knashing of teeth by chatterheads, and outrage from concerned politicos. While it may initially seem like the corporate largess at our expense will go unpunished , I would like to point out there is a very strong string better yet a chain buried in the Code of Federal Regulations. Now the study discusses 2007 salaries perks, and benefits. It does not discuss 2008 disbursements. This section of the Federal Code will permit the Federal Government to yank a very hard chain that gives them the authority to require an audit ( That makes an IRS audit look like a walk in the park.) and recall those funds provided in the Bailout at will. Also while the legislation may not speak specifically to the use of funds , the regulations which govern the post legislative, administrative process do. Often it is the obscure regualtion that gets overlooked and later when the program auditors come around , and they will, said audit will give many organizations heartburn later, and has caused many a child to mutter, "Why is daddy going to jail"?. The proof of this pudding will be in the tasting! In other words will the President -elect choose to yank that chain ? Here is a summary of the story mentioned earlier:

Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits in the calendar year 2007, an Associated Press analysis reveals.

The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.

Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.

The total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs for 53 of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars to boost their bottom lines.

Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services committee and a long-standing critic of executive largesse, said the bonuses tallied by the AP review amount to a bribe "to get them to do the jobs for which they are well paid in the first place.

"Most of us sign on to do jobs and we do them best we can," said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. "We're told that some of the most highly paid people in executive positions are different. They need extra money to be motivated!"

The AP compiled total compensation based on annual reports that the banks file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 116 banks have so far received $188 billion in taxpayer help. Among the findings:

_The average paid to each of the banks' top executives was $2.6 million in salary, bonuses and benefits.

_Lloyd Blankfein, president and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, took home nearly $54 million in compensation last year. The company's top five executives received a total of $242 million.

This year, Goldman will forgo cash and stock bonuses for its seven top-paid executives. They will work for their base salaries of $600,000, the company said. Facing increasing concern by its own shareholders on executive payments, the company described its pay plan last spring as essential to retain and motivate executives "whose efforts and judgments are vital to our continued success, by setting their compensation at appropriate and competitive levels." Goldman spokesman Ed Canaday declined to comment beyond that written report.

The New York-based company on Dec. 16 reported its first quarterly loss since it went public in 1999. It received $10 billion in taxpayer money on Oct. 28.

_Even where banks cut back on pay, some executives were left with seven- or eight-figure compensation that most people can only dream about. Richard D. Fairbank, the chairman of Capital One Financial Corp., took a $1 million hit in compensation after his company had a disappointing year, but still got $17 million in stock options. The McLean, Va.-based company received $3.56 billion in bailout money on Nov. 14.

_John A. Thain, chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch, topped all corporate bank bosses with $83 million in earnings last year. Thain, a former chief operating officer for Goldman Sachs, took the reins of the company in December 2007, avoiding the blame for a year in which Merrill lost $7.8 billion. Since he began work late in the year, he earned $57,692 in salary, a $15 million signing bonus and an additional $68 million in stock options.

Like Goldman, Merrill got $10 billion from taxpayers on Oct. 28.

The AP review comes amid sharp questions about the banks' commitment to the goals of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), a law designed to buy bad mortgages and other troubled assets. Last month, the Bush administration changed the program's goals, instructing the Treasury Department to pump tax dollars directly into banks in a bid to prevent wholesale economic collapse.

The program set restrictions on some executive compensation for participating banks, but did not limit salaries and bonuses unless they had the effect of encouraging excessive risk to the institution. Banks were barred from giving golden parachutes to departing executives and deducting some executive pay for tax purposes.

Banks that got bailout funds also paid out millions for home security systems, private chauffeured cars, and club dues. Some banks even paid for financial advisers. Wells Fargo of San Francisco, which took $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money, gave its top executives up to $20,000 each to pay personal financial planners.

At Bank of New York Mellon Corp., chief executive Robert P. Kelly's stipend for financial planning services came to $66,748, on top of his $975,000 salary and $7.5 million bonus. His car and driver cost $178,879. Kelly also received $846,000 in relocation expenses, including help selling his home in Pittsburgh and purchasing one in Manhattan, the company said.

Goldman Sachs' tab for leased cars and drivers ran as high as $233,000 per executive. The firm told its shareholders this year that financial counseling and chauffeurs are important in giving executives more time to focus on their jobs.

JPMorgan Chase chairman James Dimon ran up a $211,182 private jet travel tab last year when his family lived in Chicago and he was commuting to New York. The company got $25 billion in bailout funds.

Banks cite security to justify personal use of company aircraft for some executives. But Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., questioned that rationale, saying executives visit many locations more vulnerable than the nation's security-conscious commercial air terminals.

Sherman, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said pay excesses undermine development of good bank economic policies and promote an escalating pay spiral among competing financial institutions _ something particularly hard to take when banks then ask for rescue money.

He wants them to come before Congress, like the automakers did, and spell out their spending plans for bailout funds.

"The tougher we are on the executives that come to Washington, the fewer will come for a bailout," he said.