What do Kurt Warner and Dennis Rodman have in common?

Sometimes you're good and sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time. Such has been the case for Kurt Warner, whose recent success could give him a legitimate chance of landing in the NFL Hall of Fame for simply showing up at the opportune time.

It has been without a doubt a fairytale season for Warner in his 11th year. In a late decision Warner was announced the starter for the Arizona Cardinals over the supposed future of the franchise, Matt Leinart. In the span of a few months, his play has expanded the conversation from Pro Bowl to MVP consideration and if you look at his numbers it's hard to argue: Warner leads the league in yards and touchdowns and is fourth in QB rating. Both he and Drew Brees are on pace to break Dan Marino's single-season passing record and the Cards sit alone at the top of the NFC West.

This season, Warner leads a short list of MVP candidates along with Brees and Albert Haynesworth and if he were to win he'd tie Brett Favre for the most league MVP's with three. Warner is a Super Bowl MVP and is second all-time in both career passing rating and passing accuracy. With this season, Warner makes a convincing argument for the Hall of Fame.

Kurt Warner would make an intriguing Hall of Famer in the sense that his successes have had less to do with his own talent than a) the talent around him and b) the system he fit into. Warner came into the league as an undrafted free-agent and spent several years in arena football and NFL Europe. He got his chance in 1999 with an a loaded St. Louis Rams team that featured arguably the game's best running back in Marshall Faulk and the best wide receiving duo of Tory Holt and Isaac Bruce. The NFC West was also in a decline as the once-dominant San Francisco 49ers saw their run of the 90's come to a shrieking halt.

This was also not the age of great quarterback play. In the years 1999 and 2001 when Warner won league MVP, the second highest QB ratings belonged to Steve Beuerlein and Rich Gannon…not exactly Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. Coincidentally, Warner's successes this year come in a season in which the perennial Pro Bowl quarterbacks like Brady, Manning and Donovan McNabb have been injured or have struggled. Warner also has again the league's best receiving corps, a weak NFC West and a system that allows him to air it out 40 times a game.

On the flip side of this of course is that Kurt Warner has made the game exciting at times when the quarterback position was weak. "The Greatest Show on Turf" was one of the most explosive offensives in NFL history and what Warner is doing this season in the absence of Tom Breaky has made for good entertainment. This Kurt Warner situation opens again the door to the question should a sport's Hall of Fame, which is different than the record books, be objective or subjective?

Numbers and accolades alone should land Warner in the NFL Hall, but in the past that's not been enough for various athletes. Conflicts external to the sport and popular opinion have created an aura of controversy for Hall of Fame consideration despite one's accomplishments. The Hall of Fame should showcase the game's best players. Period. Since it's not the Hall of Integrity, athletes should be recognized for their accomplishments on the field and not punished for their decisions made outside the game. In this regard, O.J. Simpson should remain in the football Hall of Fame and Pete Rose, the player, not the manager, belongs in the baseball Hall.

Where it gets tricky is with cheaters. The great Shoeless Joe Jackson is banned from the Hall because he was a part of the Black Sox scandal in which the White Sox threw the 1919 World Series. Ironically he can't be recognized for his career before that series because he cheated to make himself worse! That's quite a parallel from today's steroid controversy. Rightfully so, some of the players of this era won't land in Cooperstown because they juiced up in their prime. Then again, for a sport that is declining in interest, nothing in baseball this decade has come even close to the excitement of the McGwire/Sosa homerun race in 1998.

Popularity can also be a contributing factor in Hall of Fame selections, as evidenced by a lack of consideration for two of the NBA's most underrated players of the last twenty years: John Stockton and Dennis Rodman. Both players suffer from the opposite situation as Kurt Warner's in that they were at their best at the wrong time; in their case, the Michael Jordan years. Stockton's Utah Jazz could never beat the Chicago Bulls for a championship and Rodman was at best a third wheel in the Bulls dynasty behind Jordan and Scottie Pippen.

Even as a Bulls fan in the 90s, I learned to play point guard watching Stockton, one of the last in an endangered breed of pure point guards. A 10-time NBA All-Star, Stockton holds the NBA record in both assists and steals by such a large margin they may never be broken. Even still, he remains greatly underappreciated because he wasn't flashy, never won a championship and wore short shorts into the 2000s.

On the other hand, Dennis Rodman was so flashy that it distracts from the player he was. Rodman belongs in the basketball Hall of Fame simply because he was fundamentally the greatest rebounder to play the game. At 6 feet 8 inches, Rodman led the NBA in rebounds a record seven consecutive years and his 18.7 rebounds a game in 1991 is the highest since Wilt Chamberlain's 19.2 in 1971. Add to that five Championships, seven All-Defensive First Team honors and twice Defensive Player of the Year and he seems to be an obvious choice for Hall consideration…even if he did wear a wedding dress in public.

Regardless of the sport, the Hall of Fame should include every athlete that should be remembered for how they played the game. Forget if they were simply part of something much bigger, like Kurt Warner. More importantly, forget about the actions and decisions made outside of the sport. Kids these days know more about O.J. Simpson's criminal history than his ability to play football and that recognition should not be left to waste on the pages of the record books.