CHICAGO -- Kurt Warner has walked in the shoes Eagles quarterback Sam Bradford is currently wearing.

No, not his actual cleats, but like Bradford the former Rams, Giants and Cardinals quarterback has been in the position of the veteran quarterback logging time for a high draft choice to replace him.

For Warner, it was Eli Manning with the Giants in 2004 and Matt Leinart just two years later in Arizona.

Bradford requested a trade earlier this week after it was made abundantly clear that the Eagles will select either California's Jared Goff or North Dakota State's Carson Wentz with the No. 2 overall choice.

"I was in a number of those situations," Warner said Wednesday during a luncheon with reporters. "I always said that when I signed on the dotted line, the contract never said 'to be a good teammate if I'm the starting quarterback.' I signed on to be a member of that organization and I had to play my role. I had to do it the best way I possibly could because that's what I signed on to do.

"It's a tough dynamic. No question. Everyone wants to play and it is the one position that only one guy gets to. That's the hard part of it. You have to embrace the situation that you're in. As a competitor, you have to use every day to get better and hope that one day you get that opportunity to be the starter again."

Warner never got the chance to retake his starting job from Manning and in Arizona ultimately led the Cardinals to its first Super Bowl appearance and passed for 15,843 yards and 100 touchdowns over five seasons.

Bradford has never experienced that level of sustained consistency or playoff success i his career, but the parallels between situations are vast.

"If I was in Sam Bradford's situation," Warner said. "And this isn't criticizing Sam, because everybody is different and every situation is different. I understand exactly where Sam's coming from.

"For me, I don't know what my role is when I signed on the dotted line. My role was to be the best teammate and best member of this organization that I can be. That's what I tried to do in every situation.

"I hoped, in every situation that I would get a fair opportunity to compete to start. If I got a fair opportunity to compete to start, I felt like I would win it every time. But, if I lost that fair competition, I would tip my hat to the competition and be the best teammate I could be to that guy because I lost fair and square. That was always the approach I took in the situations I was in."

Even after signing on the dotted line to collect $22 million in guaranteed money over a two-year contract, the ending appears to be pre-written for Bradford in Philadelphia. Wentz or Goff will be chosen with the No. 2 pick and the former Heisman Trophy winner's career could potentially become the winding path of a journeyman looking for work every offseason.

Should the Eagles elect to keep Bradford rather than trading him, the dynamic within the quarterback position meeting room could be dicey one similar to what Warner needed to navigate through his final two career stops.

"In both of those situations and both of those rooms, I felt like I was the best quarterback," Warner said. "I felt like I deserved to be playing on the field. It comes down to 'who gives us the best chance to win today?' I felt I was the guy that should have been on the football field.

"When you're in that situation and you're not the guy on the football field, it is a tough situation to be in. As a competitor, as a guy that believes he should be in there, it was hard to go to work every morning.

"But, the other aspect to it was that decision was not made by Eli Manning. It was not made by Matt Leinart. I was not going to go in and hold that against those guys. I was not going to go in and withhold information from them, because I want their job. My role was to be the best teammate and member of that organization as possible.

"I went in and said every single day, I'm going to fight for the job every day and help that guy be the best quarterback he can be. If it is an open competition, I want to beat the best possible Eli or the best possible Matt. If I didn't beat them, I wanted our organization to have the best possible quarterback to position to help us win every game that we played."

Matt Lombardo may be reached at MDLombardo@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter: @MattLombardo975 and Facebook. Find NJ.com Eagles on Facebook.