SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The funny thing is, Kurt Warner bought every word Mike Singletary was saying when they sat across the table from each other last March.

Warner, too, envisioned a franchise that could work in complete unison, one that had everyone from the front office to the practice squad operating on the same page.
There was just one problem.
“I really just felt like God was telling me, ’I brought you to Arizona to do the exact same thing that coach Singletary’s trying to do in San Francisco,’ “ Warner said.
Less than an hour into his Bay Area visit, the two-time MVP was ready to sign — with the Cardinals. He couldn’t even wait to get home. Warner called his agent from the private jet the 49ers had chartered for him and said, “Hey, let’s get this done.”
Warner’s spurning of the 49ers adds a twist to an already compelling story line for Week 1. The playoff-starved 49ers open the regular season on Sunday against the defending NFC champions.
It’s a pivotal game, so soon.
“It couldn’t come sooner,” coach Mike Singletary said.
Singletary, though, was in no rush to recount the 49ers’ attempt to sign Warner as a free agent. In his opening remarks to the media Wednesday, the coach warned reporters not to bother asking.
“That’s already been handled, already been dealt with “” don’t want to go there,” Singletary said.
Warner, in contrast, jumped at the chance. Perhaps sensing an opportunity to stress his sincerity, addressed the suspicion that his Bay Area visit was nothing more than a brazen contract ploy. (The Cardinals upped their offer to two years, with $19 million in guarantees).
Recounting his thought process, Warner said he was reluctant to explore options as a free-agent. But when talks with Arizona hit a snag, he said “it opened up my eyes that I might not finish my career here.”
So before visiting Santa Clara, he rounded up his family for a chat and told them it was not a drill. “Are you open to the possibility of moving?” he asked them.
Warner’s seven kids gave him the green light, which is how, on March 3, he wound up in a Santa Clara office with Singletary and talking about the future.
In Warner’s words, they both envisioned a team where “everyone is working side by side, instead of as different entities. We talked about building a united organization that cannot be torn apart.”
The more they spoke, though, the more Warner felt God telling him to stay put. “I know a lot of people don’t understand it, but I’m a very spiritual guy. My faith is very important to me,” Warner said.
Football only partly entered the equation. It would have made a strange mix. Singletary wants a run-oriented offense; Warner is one of the most prolific passers of all-time (he has 300-yard passing games in an NFL-record 44 percent of his starts.)
“I’m not sure it was an exact match, football-wise,” Warner acknowledged. “But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t have met in the middle and made it work.”
The question now is how much his decision to re-sign affected the balance of power in the NFC West. If Warner operates as he did in the playoffs a year ago, the high-octane Cardinals might be too potent for the conservative 49es to keep pace.
Warner’s 1,147 passing yards were the most in an NFL postseason. During the regular season, Arizona had three 1,000-yard receivers in Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin and Steve Breaston.
The 49ers haven’t had even one 1,000-yard receiver since 2003.
No wonder they took their best shot at Warner.
Now, they’ll take their chances with Shaun Hill, who has no delusions about being able to match the four-time Pro Bowler’s huge yardage totals.
Asked about the 49ers’ flirtation with Warner, Hill said he wasn’t offended by the 49ers’ wandering eye.
“I think one of you (reporters) broke the news to me when I was trout fishing,” he said. “It’s not like I was too worried about it then, and I haven’t read into it since. It is part of the NFL.”