TAMPA, Fla. — Grabbing the microphone, Kurt Warner warbled “Hey There Delilah” while eyeing the white arrow that moved across the 52-inch plasma screen like a first-down marker, measuring his pitch.

Before coming here with the aim of avenging a defeat in the Super Bowl, Warner, the Cardinals’ quarterback, tried to even another score in the game room of his Arizona home. Though able to carry a tune almost as well as a team, he has not been able to unseat his daughter Jesse as the Warner household Wii “American Idol” champion.

Warner’s choice, a Plain White T’s song about an anguished boy in love with an absent girl, stirs emotions in him that one would not expect from a married father of seven. “It’s awesome,” he said. “It’s about ‘Follow me and my dreams, and I’ll make it work.’ ”

It’s a pitch-perfect message for Warner, whose football career has been an ode to dreamers. Sprawled on a loveseat on his patio the day after Arizona clinched its first Super Bowl berth, Warner sang: “Hey there Delilah, I know times are getting hard. But just believe me, girl, someday I’ll pay the bills with this guitar.”

He grinned and said, “I used to say, ‘But just believe me, someday, I’ll pay the bills with this arm.’ ”

Over the past 11 seasons, the deeply religious Warner has converted enough disbelievers to fill a stadium. His story is so incredible, it is hard to tell where the facts end and the fable begins. From stock boy to Super Bowl M.V.P. to castoff to Super Bowl XLIII against the Pittsburgh Steelers here on Sunday, Warner offers his story as a preserver for those struggling to keep their heads above water.

After the Cardinals beat the Philadelphia Eagles in the National Football Conference championship game on Jan. 18, Warner had a fitful night’s sleep. He kept slipping out of bed to wander downstairs and watch television highlights of the game, as if to verify that he had engineered the winning drive and not dreamt it.

At this time last year, Warner was not hoping for one more Super Bowl appearance; he was praying for another N.F.L. start. He seemed destined to spend the final season of his Cardinals contract backing up the much younger Matt Leinart until Coach Ken Whisenhunt, on a hunch, named him the starter at the end of camp.

In 2005, when Warner left the Giants as a free agent and signed a one-year deal with the perennially pitiful Cardinals, it was widely viewed as a move into semiretirement.

“I believe that was the perception,” Warner said, adding: “So that’s been one of the neat parts of the story: they took a chance, I took a chance, and together we’ve made something special happen.”

The union flourished because Warner still had his quick release and computerlike ability to scan the field and process the data. And the Cardinals were an improving team with young receivers who would develop into an elite corps.

With a victory against the Steelers, Warner, 37, would probably sway the last remaining skeptics standing between him and the gates of Canton. His legacy has been a hot topic since he led the Cardinals on a 14-play, 72-yard drive in the fourth quarter for the winning score against the Eagles, his Hall of Fame credentials held up to the light for closer examination.

Are three Super Bowl appearances with two franchises enough for the voters? Does he need to win a second Vince Lombardi Trophy to go with his first, from 2000? Which matters more: that he has two league M.V.P. awards or that he has only three seasons with 16 starts? That conversation does not seem to much interest Warner.

“I want people to respect me as a guy who works his butt off, that tries to be great every time he does anything, and he wants the players around him to be great and he’ll do whatever he can to bring them to the point of greatness,” he said. “That’s definitely what I want my legacy to be.”

He paused. “Hopefully in the process, they like me, also,” he said.

As his wife, Brenda, will attest, if it is left to Warner to argue for his inclusion in the Hall of Fame, forget it. The N.F.C. title game featured — as most Cardinals games do — a heated sideline discussion between Warner and the offensive coordinator, Todd Haley.

Their screaming matches are an endless source of fascination for Brenda, who said: “I don’t see that side of Kurt at home. He doesn’t fight like that with me.” As she does after every sideline eruption, she asked Warner for a blow-by-blow account.