Helmed by offensive coordinator Mike Martz, the 1999 St. Louis Rams produced one of the most prolific offenses in NFL history, with four of the unit's players in the Hall of Fame (Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, Orlando Pace and Isaac Bruce; Torry Holt is a semifinalist for the Class of 2025).
The unit's legacy is so strong, that in February 2024, a 31-member media panel of longtime NFL writers and analysts deemed the 1999 Rams the 11th-most influential team in league history (out of 50). And as high-scoring offenses arise, The Greatest Show on Turf remains the standard by which those groups are compared to.
TheRams.com revisited that special season again with members of the 1999 team during its 25th anniversary reunion this past weekend.
Putting the pieces in place, and the promising early signs
In mid-February, former Washington quarterback Trent Green signs a reported four-year, $17.5 million contract to be the Rams' starter, having familiarity with first-time NFL offensive coordinator and play caller Mike Martz when Martz was Washington's quarterbacks coach from 1997-98. Martz, meanwhile, was back for a second stint with the Rams, after first serving as quarterbacks coach from 1992-94 and wide receivers coach from 1995-96.
In mid-April, St. Louis trades a 1999 second-round draft pick and 1999 fifth-round draft pick to the Indianapolis Colts for running back Marshall Faulk.
On April 17, the Rams select North Carolina State wide receiver Torry Holt sixth overall in the first round of the draft.
Faulk's arrival provides Martz with a versatile chess piece capable of creating mismatches all over the field, Holt's a great complementary player alongside the veteran Bruce. The offense would be able to threaten defenses in multiple different ways.
Early signs in the spring and summer were promising as those pieces came together.
Martz, to St. Louis Radio Station KMOX 1120 AM/98.7 FM in September: "We went (into minicamp) and we just had to retool everything. We did and by the end of minicamp, what Trent (Green) was able to do with these guys and Marshall (Faulk), there was a feeling and excitement that was electric. We knew we were going to be really good coming out of minicamp. When we got to (training) camp, we absolutely caught fire. When we got to the preseason game, we couldn't wait for the regular season to start. We were rolling. Everyone that saw us in the preseason were taken back by what they saw I think."
Holt: "I'll tell you what, it was beautiful. And when I first got to St Louis and got to practice it with the guys, I couldn't understand why they were as bad as they were. When you look at the talent, the way in which we practiced, the speed, then Marshall came on and he's adding his element of the run game and his intelligence, I'm like, 'man, if all goes well...' I'm still young at this time too, I'm really just trying to make a team. I'm trying to make an impression to make the team. But I'm seeing like, man, we can be really good!"
The quarterback leading the offense will be different than anticipated, however, after Green suffers a season-ending knee injury in the preseason against the Chargers.
The offense would now be led by Kurt Warner, who joined the team prior to the 1998 season and served as their third-string quarterback that year and was initially slated to be the backup to Green after Tony Banks was traded to the Ravens during the 1999 offseason.
Health was also a factor in another important variable.
After back-to-back seasons with more than 1,300 receiving yards and at least 7 receiving touchdowns in 1995 and 1996, Bruce had been hampered by hamstring injuries across the 1997 and 1998 seasons. Given that historical production, having him at full strength would be critical to the unit's success.
Warner was kept around for good reason. According to a 2022 NFL.com story Warner wrote, Vermeil told Warner him making the team was not because of his "on-field exploits," but rather that he felt there was "something different about him and he couldn't move on from him without finding out what it was."
How prophetic it proved to be.
Warner becomes the first player in NFL history to throw three touchdown passes in each of his first three starts. Meanwhile, the Rams offense catches fire, scoring 25, 35, 38, 42, 41 and 34 points en route to a 6-0 start.
Echoing Martz, Warner said players could see the potential based on how the offense operated under Green in the preseason. And what was an unknown variable externally – the former Arena Football League quarterback who had been running the scout team and had only one NFL regular season game of experience under his belt – would become known quickly.
Warner: "I know nobody else really expected much from me at that point in time, but I did, and so it was kind of an extension of who I felt I was as a quarterback, so I wasn't necessarily surprised by the success. I'm not sure anybody expected us as a team to come on as quickly as we did, and kind of explode onto the scene and score like we did. … It wasn't to me as much of a surprise as I'm sure it was to a lot of people, because I was that x-factor that nobody really knew, right? Nobody you know knew what to expect, or were necessarily believing, you know what I was capable of. So I think a lot of people were, you know, we're more shocked by that part of it, probably less you know about our team, because we had a bunch of proven guys on our team that it played at a high level."
Bruce: "I think maybe his experience in Arena Football League, getting rid of the ball fast, making quick decisions, that may have helped him tremendously. However, I can't give enough credit (to) Mike Martz. His development of him, bringing him along and giving him the confidence and ability to show his skillset. If I had to put one thing or to shine the light on one person out of that group, for me, it's always two people: Mike Martz number one, Orlando Pace number two."
Holt: "What they (offensive lineman) were asked to do, in terms of blocking man-to-man matchups and everybody out in routes to be available for Kurt, was just a fantastic feat by them. So they allowed us on the perimeter to now run those 25-yard routes that you hear about, those deep sevens, those long-count, seven-count passes with a hitch."
Pace: "I think our first indication of us having success and Kurt Warner being the guy, at the time, we had lost to San Francisco like 17, 18-straight times. Jerry Rice (and) everybody's coming to the dome. And we beat that team, we overcame that hurdle. We said, 'Okay, if we can beat them, we can do anything.' So we just kept running on protecting Kurt, putting real good pieces around them, and the rest is history."
Ahead of its time
Warner threw five touchdown passes in that game, a 42-20 Rams win that marked the fourth of those eventual six-straight victories to start the 1999 season, with Bruce on the receiving end of four of them. Bruce also had five receptions for 134 yards.
Faulk credited Martz's brilliance and boldness for putting together an offense ahead of its time. Yes, it was derived from the Coryell system, but Martz made it his own.
The pass-first offense routinely sent players in motion, and it wasn't uncommon to St. Louis' offense to have four wide receivers and one running back on the field on first down.
Faulk: "His boldness to do things that had never been done before, that, to this day, has an influence on how people play. Motion, shift-motion, and all the other stuff, skimming, like the willingness – other than the run and shoot (offense), I have not seen a team start the game with four receivers and one running back. That was a, 'Oh my God, it's third and long' (situation). So Mike, I just wish as an offensive coordinator, as a defensive coordinator, you had the opportunity to be a part of the Hall of Fame like a head coach does, because those coordinators are instrumental."
Bruce: "The innovation of Mike Martz, his ability to see it, set up the defense. It always going to be a dance, and we always made it where we were the ones, the offense, dictating the dance. So we led the dance. He put us in the right position. He schemed defenses to the point where we were, many times, running wide open without anyone else in the screen. I mean, I had been in the league for five years at that time, and I had never seen that."
What made the offense special
Like any effective offense, the playcaller-quarterback relationship played a pivotal role, with Martz and Warner both seeing the game through a similar lens. Martz designed an offense that tailored to Warner's strengths and made it easy to understand they "why" behind every play. Martz also never worried about Warner's aggressive "gunslinger" mentality, encouraging him to go make plays. Even when mistakes were made, Martz trusted Warner to make another play.
Were there disagreements sometimes? Sure. But they were aligned when it mattered most.
Warner: "I think so much of how he saw the game was very similar to how I saw the game. And what I felt my greatest strengths were, the big throws, the chunk throws down the field, is where I felt I could separate myself from everybody else. So the offense being built that way, him seeing it like, when he built a play, it very much made sense to me why he was doing it and what the answers were, and those sorts of things."
Faulk: "I think Kurt understanding what Mike wanted, and Mike understanding Kurt's abilities and what he was capable of (helped the offense reach its potential). And they weren't always on the same page, but they always saw the best in each other. And in the most crucial times, they were always on the same page. Did they have differences? Yes. But in the most crucial times they both knew what was best for the team."
There were numerous other reasons why the '99 offense was special and forward-thinking.
Warner points out the contrast between Martz's offense and the normal West Coast system during that time. Under Martz, the Rams offense had a big play-to-checkdown mentality, whereas the traditional West Coast system was the opposite – shorter throws, getting the ball out quickly and getting completions, working up to the deeper throws.
Warner: "We very much had a different mentality that we were going to attack and we were going to look for big plays, and we were built around those 20- to 35-yard plays, which, I think, was very different. And then we were very multiple in terms of all the things that we could do."
Then there was the sheer volume of new information that the players had to absorb, which in turn kept defenses on their toes.
It was one thing to have to worry about finding ways to defend Bruce, Holt and Faulk; try doing it as Martz came up with new ways to take advantage of their talents weekly.
Warner: "We had an extensive playbook. I was never anywhere else that had anywhere close to that type of playbook that we had. And we had turnover (where), every week, we have 70% new plays that we hadn't run the week before. And so I think when you start to thicken that book that people have to prepare for, seeing these plays, and then seeing them in different formations, and seeing different movements they couldn't prepare for, for everything we could throw at them, and then try to figure out your matchups, on top of that with these different players that we had, I think it was just impossible at the time, because it was so different and so extensive compared to what they would see from anybody else."
Longstanding legacy
The Rams went on to finish 13-3 in 1999 and win Super Bowl XXXIV, delivering the franchise its first Super Bowl title.
From 1999-2001, no team completed more balls for more yards or more touchdowns during that span. The fast-paced 1999 season – which also featured the fourth-most points scored in a season in league history with 526 – the stage for an explosive 2000, when the Rams set an NFL record with the most yards gained in a season at 7,075 and became first offense in league history to amass over 7,000 yards. That record stood for 11 years before New Orleans broke it in 2011 with 7,474; Denver bumped them down to third with 7,317 in 2013.
St. Louis would go on to lead the league in passing yards for three-straight seasons from 99-01; tied with Miami (1986-88) and the Houston Oilers (1990-92) for third-most all time.
Perhaps the most telling aspect of the 1999 Rams offense's legacy is its continual reference on broadcasts. Whenever a high-powered, explosive offense surfaces to the forefront of the NFL landscape in a season this day and age, it usually draws comparisons to The Greatest Show on Turf.
Martz, to KMOX: "I still think about it, those players that were involved and how much fun it was to be around them and experience all that with them. It's great memories."
Pace: "When you said The Greatest Show on Turf, right, the way we played, the style of play we played, how fast we played, people don't talk about how physical we played, but in order for Kurt to get those throws off, our offensive line played extremely well. So I think we always played fun, we played fast, but we really, really enjoyed around each other."
Warner: "I still believe it's the best offense we've ever seen. When you put together a three-year period of what we did, I don't think we've seen anything like it, before or after. We've seen some good offenses, but just the consistency by which we played is something that I hope we're remembered for, is why we were so unique. I think the legacy becomes ushering in what is the NFL now, and we see a lot of teams that do more-similar things to what we did at that time, but the rules were different and the league was different, and how things were done was different. So I think we take pride in the fact that so much of what the modern day game is came from what we started and what were able to accomplish. Teams are still trying to, 25 years later, match what we did at a different time in a different era. So I think that's pretty special, when you think about all the advances and all the rules that push toward offensive football, and know there still hasn't been a team that's matched what we did in a three-year basis the way we did it."
Faulk: "Oh, the best, greatest of all time (is what this offense's legacy should be). Like, there's going to be people that emulate what we did. And obviously, to throw the ball now in in this league that's a little softer than what we played in, and when I say that, I mean no disrespect, I'm just talking about, we played against some guys, there wasn't illegal contact, there wasn't defenseless receiver, and we had some guys that went out there and laid it all on the line. And people think they call it 'The Greatest Show on Turf' because of the fun that we had. No, it because it was a high-wire (act). A lot of the things that we did, you risked your career. Kurt stood back there and took hits, and put a lot on the line, to throw that ball and get the ball downfield for us to be successful. It was more of, when you go to watch the circus, you don't have the net at the bottom. If you fall off that wire, you're hitting the ground, and that's how we played the game."
Bruce: "The legacy is about seeing our footprint throughout the league. I think there isn't a year that goes by since the creation of The Greatest Show on Turf that The Greatest Show on Turf hasn't been mentioned by some analyst, some beat writer, some play-by-play person, because it was so unique that we had the personnel, we had the scheme, and then we maximized it to 'Max Q,' is what we called it."
Holt: "I think certainly we continue to help revolutionize the game, the passing game. The speed, the precision, the connectivity, the unselfishness (and) the encouragement with which we played, and then the pure joy that we brought to fans across not only in St. Louis, but the across the NFL landscape, because everybody wanted to see how we played football. Like, 'Is the speed really real? Is the routes really real? Is the precision really real? Is Marshall really good, 1,000 (rushing yards)-1,000 (receiving yards) type back? We were part of revolutionizing the way offensive football is now played."
