14. Dennis Green
Regular-season record: 113-94-0
Postseason record: 4-8
Minnesota Vikings, 1992-2001
Arizona Cardinals, 2004-2006
Speaking of coaches known for soundbites …
Green’s Cardinals let the Bears off the hook in Week 6 of the 2006 season with a 24-23 loss after holding a 20-0 halftime lead and giving up two fumble returns and a punt return for touchdowns. Maybe Coach Green was upset because his team lost to Rex Grossman. We would be, too. In any event, Green, who spent three years as the 49ers’ receivers coach under Bill Walsh and three more as Stanford’s head coach from 1989 through 1991, was hired as Minnesota’s head coach in 1992 with the idea that he could modernize the Vikings’ offense. By the end of the decade, he had done just that — the 1998 team set what was then the single-season record for points scored with 556, and went 15-1 in the regular season. They blew out the Cardinals in the divisional frame before losing the NFC Championship Game to the Falcons in what was supposed to have been a coronation for the greatest offense in NFL history.
Green lasted with Minnesota until 2001, his first losing season with the team, spent a couple years as an ESPN analyst, and then returned to coaching with the Cardinals in 2004. He never managed a winning record in the Valley of the Sun, but much of the roster that later reached the Super Bowl under Ken Whisenhunt was assembled during Green’s tenure. Green, who died in 2016 due to complications from cardiac arrest, was the third black head coach in NFL history, after Fritz Pollard and Art Shell, and the first black head coach who had not played in the league.