Dennis Green

Dennis Green

Green and his youngest son at Super Bowl XXXVIII
Personal information
Born:	(1949-02-17)February 17, 1949 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died:	July 22, 2016(2016-07-22) (aged 67) San Diego, California, U.S.
Career information
High school:	John Harris High School (PA)
College:	University of Iowa
Position:	Running back
Undrafted:	1971
Career history
As a player:
BC Lions (1971)
As a coach:
Iowa (1972) Graduate assistant Dayton (1973) Running backs coach & wide receivers coach Iowa (1974–1976) Running backs coach Stanford (1977–1978) Running backs coach San Francisco 49ers (1979) Special teams coach Stanford (1980) Offensive coordinator Northwestern (1981–1985) Head coach San Francisco 49ers (1986–1988) Wide receivers coach Stanford (1989–1991) Head coach Minnesota Vikings (1992–2001) Head coach Arizona Cardinals (2004–2006) Head coach California Redwoods / Sacramento Mountain Lions (2009–2011) Head coach
Executive profile at Pro Football Reference
Career highlights and awards
Super Bowl champion (XXIII) Maxwell Club NFL Coach of the Year[broken anchor] (1998) Big Ten Coach of the Year (1982) Minnesota Vikings Ring of Honor Minnesota Vikings All-Mall of America Field Team
Career NFL statistics
Win–loss record: 113–94 Postseason record: 4–8 NCAA record: 26–63
Record at Pro Football Reference

Dennis Earl Green (February 17, 1949 – July 22, 2016) was an American football coach. During his National Football League (NFL) career, Green coached the Minnesota Vikings from 1992 to 2001 and the Arizona Cardinals from 2004 to 2006. He coached the Vikings to eight playoff appearances in nine years, despite having seven different starting quarterbacks in those postseasons.^[1] He was posthumously inducted into the Minnesota Vikings Ring of Honor in 2018.

Green was the second African American head coach in modern NFL history, after Art Shell. He was the Minnesota Vikings head coach from 1992 to 2001. He was one of the winningest coaches of the 1990s, posting a 97–62 record as Vikings head coach. Green's best season in Minnesota was in 1998, when the Vikings finished 15–1 and set the NFL record for most points in a season at the time; however, the Vikings were upset by the Atlanta Falcons in that year's NFC Championship Game, and Green was unable to reach the Super Bowl throughout his otherwise successful tenure with Minnesota. Following his first losing record in 2001, he was fired just before the final game of the season.

Green was hired by the Cardinals to serve as the head coach for the 2004 season, a franchise then noted for its futility, which had posted only one winning season in a quarter-century. In Arizona, Green was unable to match his success in Minnesota, and his poor win–loss record (16–32) with the Cardinals was similar to that of his predecessors in Arizona. However, many describe Green's tenure with Arizona as an inflection point in the history of the Cardinals, arguing that the culture of the team changed under Green, and that the core of the personnel in the Cardinals' 2008 Super Bowl run was acquired by Green.