Post by Purple Pain on Jul 20, 2019 14:12:06 GMT -6
Tomorrow already marks three years since his passing.
Some love him; some don't. But one thing is for certain: he had a lot of success in purple.
This comes from r/nfl.
[OC] In Dennis Green’s 10 seasons with the Vikings, he made the playoffs 8 times with 7 different quarterbacks. by DayOldTurkeySandwich
Comments/discussion at the link:
old.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/cf7fdu/oc_in_dennis_greens_10_seasons_with_the_vikings/
Good comment here:
Some love him; some don't. But one thing is for certain: he had a lot of success in purple.
This comes from r/nfl.
[OC] In Dennis Green’s 10 seasons with the Vikings, he made the playoffs 8 times with 7 different quarterbacks. by DayOldTurkeySandwich
What Dennis Green did without a lot of stability at the quarterback position was remarkable and probably won’t be duplicated in the current era of franchise quarterbacks.
During his time in Minnesota he had 10 different quarterbacks start for him, 2 of which were Spergon Wynn and Todd Bouman in his final season, where he was fired before Week 17. A rundown of each year’s quarterback situation:
1992 – Rich Gannon starts 12 games and Sean Salisbury 4. He inherits Gannon and Salisbury from the previous year’s team and chooses Gannon as the Week 1 starter. Green benches Gannon before their Week 13 game against the Rams. Gannon would start one more game in Week 15 against the 49ers, but Salisbury would get the start in their Wild Card playoff game. Salisbury goes 6-20 with 113 yards passing and 2 interceptions in his only career playoff start. He would later get paid millions to analyze professional quarterback play on national television.
1993 – The Vikings bring in Super Bowl winning former Chicago Bears QB Jim McMahon to be their starter for the season. McMahon starts 12 games and Salisbury the other 4. McMahon starts for them in the playoffs, a 17-10 loss to the New York Giants. McMahon would only start one more game for the rest of his career, a 32-0 loss to the Browns when he played for Buddy Ryan’s Cardinals, but would win another Super Bowl as a backup quarterback for the Packers before retiring.
1994 – Dennis Green and the Vikings decide not to bring back McMahon and sign 37-year-old Warren Moon to be their starter. He starts 15 games for them, with Salisbury starting the only other game. Salisbury plays for an injured Warren Moon, hobbled by a sprained left knee, and wins against the 49ers in Week 17, clinching the team’s 3rd straight playoff appearance under Green. Moon gets the start and, in his final career playoff appearance, loses to Steve Walsh, Dave Wannstedt, and the 1994 Chicago Bears in the Wild Card round. The Bears would get blown out by the eventual Super Bowl champion 49ers the next week and would not win another playoff game until their Super Bowl run with Lovie Smith in 2006.
1995 – The Vikings finally get stability at the quarterback position with 38-year-old Warren Moon starting all 16 games for them. Moon has a great statistical season with over 4,000 yards passing and 33 TDs to 14 INTs. The Vikings offense finishes the season 4th in points scored but 27th in points allowed and misses the playoffs for the first time in the Dennis Green era with a record of 8-8.
1996 – Warren Moon returns as the Vikings starting quarterback, but is mostly injured and ineffective. After suffering a broken collarbone in a Week 11 loss to the Seahawks, longtime team backup Brad Johnson becomes the team’s starter for the rest of the season, with both quarterbacks starting 8 games each for the season. Johnson was a 9th round pick for the Vikings, back when they had that many rounds. Johnson hung on as the team’s 3rd string quarterback for the entirety of Green’s tenure, except for a brief stint he spent with the London Monarchs of the now defunct NFL Europe. Johnson goes 5-3 as a starter, good enough get the Vikings a playoff spot at 9-7. Johnson’s first career playoff start is a 40-15 loss in the Wild Card round to the Dallas Cowboys, who would not win another playoff game until beating the Eagles in the Wild Card round in January 2010. They would lose their next playoff game that year to…the Vikings, led by Brett Favre.
1997 – Warren Moon has now moved on to the Seattle Seahawks, where he will be their starter for the next 2 seasons. Based on his success last season, Brad Johnson is the Week 1 starter for the Vikings and will start 13 games for the team. In the 1997 offseason, however, the Vikings made one of their biggest moves of the Dennis Green era by bringing in quarterback Randall Cunningham. Cunningham had been out of football the previous season, having retired from the Eagles after being reduced to a backup role in favor of Rodney Peete in 1995. Johnson leads the team to an 8-4 record and, apropos of nothing, becomes the first player in NFL history to catch his own deflected pass and run it in for a touchdown in Week 7. Before his 13th start of the season, a MNF game against the Packers, he wakes up with neck pain the morning of the game. It is learned later on that he was suffering from a bulging disc between his 5th and 6th vertebrae, severely affecting his grip, and leading him to throw multiple errant passes that night. He is benched late in the game for Randall Cunningham, who would start the Vikings final 3 regular season games and their postseason game. For the first time in the Dennis Green era the Vikings get a postseason victory, defeating Danny Kanell and the 10-5-1 New York Giants on a last second field goal. Cunningham would start the Vikings next postseason game, a loss to Steve Young and the 49ers.
1998 – Brad Johnson starts the first two games for the Vikings in 1998, both victories, before leaving with a leg injury in Week 2. Cunningham starts the remaining 14 games for the team and goes 13-1. The Vikings finish 15-1 and set the record for points scored in a season with 541, led in part by phenomenal rookie wide receiver Randy Moss. For the first time in his coaching career, Dennis Green gets to start the same quarterback in consecutive postseason appearances, starting Cunningham in a 41-21 win over an Arizona Cardinals team that had just won its first postseason game in 51 years. Dennis Green gets his second career postseason victory and advances to his first ever NFC Championship game as head coach, where his Vikings would fall to the Falcons 30-27. Cunningham finishes the season with 3,704 passing yards, 34 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, a 106.0 passer rating, and 2nd in the MVP voting behind Terrell Davis, who had 2,008 rushing yards and 21 rushing TDs for the Broncos.
1999 – Coming off of his stellar 1998 season, Dennis Green decides to stick with the 36-year-old Cunningham as his starter. The Vikings trade Brad Johnson to the Washington Redskins for a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round draft pick. Johnson would have his greatest statistical season in Washington that year, throwing for over 4,000 yards for the only time in his career with a 90.0 quarterback rating, leading the Redskins to a 10-6 record and a playoff victory over the Lions in the Wild Card round. The Vikings bring in veteran quarterback and malcontent Jeff George to backup Cunningham, and Green drafts a new quarterback to eventually replace Cunningham with 1st round pick Daunte Culpepper. Unfortunately for Green, Cunningham’s production falls off a cliff this season. After throwing just 8 touchdowns to 9 interceptions, Cunningham is benched after 6 games for George, who goes 8-2 in the team’s final 10 games and secures them a Wild Card spot. George becomes the 6th different quarterback to start a playoff game under Dennis Green and defeats the Dallas Cowboys in the Wild Card round. The next week George throws 4 touchdown passes, but is bested by Kurt Warner who throws 5 in a 49-37 win on the way to his only Super Bowl win. Cunningham would spend the next 2 seasons as a backup in Dallas and Baltimore, starting 5 more games before retiring in 2002.
2000 – Dennis Green tells Jeff George to, “shop around” before offering him a 1-year, $400,000 contract to return. George elects to sign with the Redskins and become former Vikings QB Brad Johnson’s backup, where he would take over the job from him in 2001. The Vikings bring in veteran castoffs Bubby Brister and Scott Mitchell as backups. Green decides to go all-in with 2nd year quarterback Daunte Culpepper, who did not have a single pass attempt his rookie year. Culpepper pays off Green’s decision by going 11-5 as a starter, throwing for nearly 4,000 yards and 33 TDs with a quarterback rating of 98.0. The Vikings win their 4th division title under Green and make the playoffs for the 5th consecutive year. For just the second time during his tenure with the Vikings, Dennis Green has 1 quarterback start all 16 games, and for the first time makes the playoffs with them. In his first career playoff start in the Divisional Round, Culpepper defeats a Saints team that had just won its first playoff game in franchise history before losing to the Giants 41-0 in the NFC Championship game.
2001 – Culpepper is the team’s starter again but immediately goes 0-2. He would ultimately throw just 14 touchdowns to 13 interceptions while getting sacked 33 times in the team’s first 11 games before missing the team’s final 5 games with a knee injury. With Bubby Brister and Scott Mitchell no longer on the roster, Green has to turn to undrafted, unproven 4th year quarterback Todd Bouman and the famously terrible member of the Brady 6, Spergon Wynn, to start for him. In Green’s final game as head coach of the Vikings, Wynn goes 11-30 for 114 yards, with 1 touchdown and 3 interceptions in a loss to Green Bay. Green was fired before Week 17, what would be Wynn’s final appearance in the NFL before leaving for the Canadian Football League and ultimate obscurity.
Green left the Vikings with a 97-63 regular season record and 4-8 playoff record, making it to the NFC Championship game in the 2000 and 1998 seasons and only missing the playoffs twice. His final quarterback count was 10 different starters in almost 10 full seasons, with 7 different starting quarterbacks for his 8 different playoff runs.
Among active head coaches, 9 have made the playoffs with multiple QBs while only 4 have done it with more than 2 different QBs (Carroll, O’Brien, Reid, John Gruden). Andy Reid has taken the most different quarterbacks to the playoffs among active head coaches with 5 (McNabb, Garcia, Vick, A. Smith, Mahomes) and that was spread out over 20 seasons compared to 6 for Green. While not quite as impressive as Joe Gibbs winning 3 Super Bowls with 3 different quarterbacks, I think what Green accomplished also deserves recognition. RIP coach.
During his time in Minnesota he had 10 different quarterbacks start for him, 2 of which were Spergon Wynn and Todd Bouman in his final season, where he was fired before Week 17. A rundown of each year’s quarterback situation:
1992 – Rich Gannon starts 12 games and Sean Salisbury 4. He inherits Gannon and Salisbury from the previous year’s team and chooses Gannon as the Week 1 starter. Green benches Gannon before their Week 13 game against the Rams. Gannon would start one more game in Week 15 against the 49ers, but Salisbury would get the start in their Wild Card playoff game. Salisbury goes 6-20 with 113 yards passing and 2 interceptions in his only career playoff start. He would later get paid millions to analyze professional quarterback play on national television.
1993 – The Vikings bring in Super Bowl winning former Chicago Bears QB Jim McMahon to be their starter for the season. McMahon starts 12 games and Salisbury the other 4. McMahon starts for them in the playoffs, a 17-10 loss to the New York Giants. McMahon would only start one more game for the rest of his career, a 32-0 loss to the Browns when he played for Buddy Ryan’s Cardinals, but would win another Super Bowl as a backup quarterback for the Packers before retiring.
1994 – Dennis Green and the Vikings decide not to bring back McMahon and sign 37-year-old Warren Moon to be their starter. He starts 15 games for them, with Salisbury starting the only other game. Salisbury plays for an injured Warren Moon, hobbled by a sprained left knee, and wins against the 49ers in Week 17, clinching the team’s 3rd straight playoff appearance under Green. Moon gets the start and, in his final career playoff appearance, loses to Steve Walsh, Dave Wannstedt, and the 1994 Chicago Bears in the Wild Card round. The Bears would get blown out by the eventual Super Bowl champion 49ers the next week and would not win another playoff game until their Super Bowl run with Lovie Smith in 2006.
1995 – The Vikings finally get stability at the quarterback position with 38-year-old Warren Moon starting all 16 games for them. Moon has a great statistical season with over 4,000 yards passing and 33 TDs to 14 INTs. The Vikings offense finishes the season 4th in points scored but 27th in points allowed and misses the playoffs for the first time in the Dennis Green era with a record of 8-8.
1996 – Warren Moon returns as the Vikings starting quarterback, but is mostly injured and ineffective. After suffering a broken collarbone in a Week 11 loss to the Seahawks, longtime team backup Brad Johnson becomes the team’s starter for the rest of the season, with both quarterbacks starting 8 games each for the season. Johnson was a 9th round pick for the Vikings, back when they had that many rounds. Johnson hung on as the team’s 3rd string quarterback for the entirety of Green’s tenure, except for a brief stint he spent with the London Monarchs of the now defunct NFL Europe. Johnson goes 5-3 as a starter, good enough get the Vikings a playoff spot at 9-7. Johnson’s first career playoff start is a 40-15 loss in the Wild Card round to the Dallas Cowboys, who would not win another playoff game until beating the Eagles in the Wild Card round in January 2010. They would lose their next playoff game that year to…the Vikings, led by Brett Favre.
1997 – Warren Moon has now moved on to the Seattle Seahawks, where he will be their starter for the next 2 seasons. Based on his success last season, Brad Johnson is the Week 1 starter for the Vikings and will start 13 games for the team. In the 1997 offseason, however, the Vikings made one of their biggest moves of the Dennis Green era by bringing in quarterback Randall Cunningham. Cunningham had been out of football the previous season, having retired from the Eagles after being reduced to a backup role in favor of Rodney Peete in 1995. Johnson leads the team to an 8-4 record and, apropos of nothing, becomes the first player in NFL history to catch his own deflected pass and run it in for a touchdown in Week 7. Before his 13th start of the season, a MNF game against the Packers, he wakes up with neck pain the morning of the game. It is learned later on that he was suffering from a bulging disc between his 5th and 6th vertebrae, severely affecting his grip, and leading him to throw multiple errant passes that night. He is benched late in the game for Randall Cunningham, who would start the Vikings final 3 regular season games and their postseason game. For the first time in the Dennis Green era the Vikings get a postseason victory, defeating Danny Kanell and the 10-5-1 New York Giants on a last second field goal. Cunningham would start the Vikings next postseason game, a loss to Steve Young and the 49ers.
1998 – Brad Johnson starts the first two games for the Vikings in 1998, both victories, before leaving with a leg injury in Week 2. Cunningham starts the remaining 14 games for the team and goes 13-1. The Vikings finish 15-1 and set the record for points scored in a season with 541, led in part by phenomenal rookie wide receiver Randy Moss. For the first time in his coaching career, Dennis Green gets to start the same quarterback in consecutive postseason appearances, starting Cunningham in a 41-21 win over an Arizona Cardinals team that had just won its first postseason game in 51 years. Dennis Green gets his second career postseason victory and advances to his first ever NFC Championship game as head coach, where his Vikings would fall to the Falcons 30-27. Cunningham finishes the season with 3,704 passing yards, 34 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, a 106.0 passer rating, and 2nd in the MVP voting behind Terrell Davis, who had 2,008 rushing yards and 21 rushing TDs for the Broncos.
1999 – Coming off of his stellar 1998 season, Dennis Green decides to stick with the 36-year-old Cunningham as his starter. The Vikings trade Brad Johnson to the Washington Redskins for a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round draft pick. Johnson would have his greatest statistical season in Washington that year, throwing for over 4,000 yards for the only time in his career with a 90.0 quarterback rating, leading the Redskins to a 10-6 record and a playoff victory over the Lions in the Wild Card round. The Vikings bring in veteran quarterback and malcontent Jeff George to backup Cunningham, and Green drafts a new quarterback to eventually replace Cunningham with 1st round pick Daunte Culpepper. Unfortunately for Green, Cunningham’s production falls off a cliff this season. After throwing just 8 touchdowns to 9 interceptions, Cunningham is benched after 6 games for George, who goes 8-2 in the team’s final 10 games and secures them a Wild Card spot. George becomes the 6th different quarterback to start a playoff game under Dennis Green and defeats the Dallas Cowboys in the Wild Card round. The next week George throws 4 touchdown passes, but is bested by Kurt Warner who throws 5 in a 49-37 win on the way to his only Super Bowl win. Cunningham would spend the next 2 seasons as a backup in Dallas and Baltimore, starting 5 more games before retiring in 2002.
2000 – Dennis Green tells Jeff George to, “shop around” before offering him a 1-year, $400,000 contract to return. George elects to sign with the Redskins and become former Vikings QB Brad Johnson’s backup, where he would take over the job from him in 2001. The Vikings bring in veteran castoffs Bubby Brister and Scott Mitchell as backups. Green decides to go all-in with 2nd year quarterback Daunte Culpepper, who did not have a single pass attempt his rookie year. Culpepper pays off Green’s decision by going 11-5 as a starter, throwing for nearly 4,000 yards and 33 TDs with a quarterback rating of 98.0. The Vikings win their 4th division title under Green and make the playoffs for the 5th consecutive year. For just the second time during his tenure with the Vikings, Dennis Green has 1 quarterback start all 16 games, and for the first time makes the playoffs with them. In his first career playoff start in the Divisional Round, Culpepper defeats a Saints team that had just won its first playoff game in franchise history before losing to the Giants 41-0 in the NFC Championship game.
2001 – Culpepper is the team’s starter again but immediately goes 0-2. He would ultimately throw just 14 touchdowns to 13 interceptions while getting sacked 33 times in the team’s first 11 games before missing the team’s final 5 games with a knee injury. With Bubby Brister and Scott Mitchell no longer on the roster, Green has to turn to undrafted, unproven 4th year quarterback Todd Bouman and the famously terrible member of the Brady 6, Spergon Wynn, to start for him. In Green’s final game as head coach of the Vikings, Wynn goes 11-30 for 114 yards, with 1 touchdown and 3 interceptions in a loss to Green Bay. Green was fired before Week 17, what would be Wynn’s final appearance in the NFL before leaving for the Canadian Football League and ultimate obscurity.
Green left the Vikings with a 97-63 regular season record and 4-8 playoff record, making it to the NFC Championship game in the 2000 and 1998 seasons and only missing the playoffs twice. His final quarterback count was 10 different starters in almost 10 full seasons, with 7 different starting quarterbacks for his 8 different playoff runs.
Among active head coaches, 9 have made the playoffs with multiple QBs while only 4 have done it with more than 2 different QBs (Carroll, O’Brien, Reid, John Gruden). Andy Reid has taken the most different quarterbacks to the playoffs among active head coaches with 5 (McNabb, Garcia, Vick, A. Smith, Mahomes) and that was spread out over 20 seasons compared to 6 for Green. While not quite as impressive as Joe Gibbs winning 3 Super Bowls with 3 different quarterbacks, I think what Green accomplished also deserves recognition. RIP coach.
Comments/discussion at the link:
old.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/cf7fdu/oc_in_dennis_greens_10_seasons_with_the_vikings/
Good comment here:
TheSwede91w:
F*cking Vikings and instability on offense, name a more iconic duo. It's crazy Zimmer is on his 8th QB and like 5th OC in his 5 year tenure and has only had one losing season. Not surprisingly, the only losing year was his first where he started Ponder, Cassel, and then Bridgewater.
F*cking Vikings and instability on offense, name a more iconic duo. It's crazy Zimmer is on his 8th QB and like 5th OC in his 5 year tenure and has only had one losing season. Not surprisingly, the only losing year was his first where he started Ponder, Cassel, and then Bridgewater.
... and neither is this Chris guy.