As news of Green’s death hit the National Football League family Friday another former head coach is battling for his life. Other details were not immediately disclosed, though the Cardinals said Green had died of a heart attack.
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Green’s teams in Minnesota ranked in the top-10 in the National Football League in yards and points five times each, and the 1998 team set an all-time record for points scored in a season that stood until 2007, when it was broken by the New England Patriots.
Green had only one losing season with the Vikings and compiled a 97-62 record, including a 15-1 season in 1998 spearheaded by a record-setting offense.
Green’s next head coaching stop was with the Arizona Cardinals, which he joined in 2004 after spending the 2002 and 2003 NFL seasons as an ESPN football analyst.
But on this day of remembrance Green should be praised for the success he had in Minnesota, not for whatever went wrong in Arizona. He resurfaced with the Cardinals in 2004, going 16-32 in three seasons in the desert. He had a 113-94 career record as a head.
“Freer spirit for the team in its entirety, Dennis Green himself liked to have a good time, so the players exuded that same type of good time atmosphere”, said Boyer. Green’s Cardinal also went 3-0 in the Big Game, including one of the craziest finishes ever in the 1990 Big Game.
Rest in peace, Dennis Green.
Green held the position for one year before Northwestern hired him as coach in 1981. “He helped pave the way for minority coaches and recently served as a key advisor on the NFL’s Career Development Advisory Panel”.
The hope was that Green could bring victories to a franchise that, in what was Green’s third season, was moving into brand-new University of Phoenix Stadium. “We express our deepest sympathy to his family and many friends”. Gary Anderson missed a 38-year-old field goal – his only miss of the season – late in the fourth quarter of the NFC championship game against the Atlanta Falcons.
Green’s firing from the Vikings in 2002 was one factor that would lead the NFL to adopt the Rooney Rule beginning in 2003, which requires teams to interview minority candidates for head coaching and senior football operation jobs. His three-year tenure in the desert was not as successful as his stint in Minnesota, as the Cards failed to reach the playoffs or even crack.
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The family asked that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to the Boys and Girls Club of San Diego. It was during that presser that he uttered the infamous line “They are who we thought they were!” The Cardinals’ meltdown led to a memorable postgame rant, in which Mr. Green pounded the podium and yelled “The Bears are who we thought they were!”
