Green named Arizona coach

TEMPE, Ariz. -- Dennis Green is hoping his no-nonsense approach to coaching turns around the Arizona Cardinals' history of almost no success.\nThe former Minnesota Vikings coach agreed to a four-year contract Wednesday night after an extended bargaining session via faxes and telephone calls between San Diego and team headquarters in Tempe.\nThe club scheduled a news conference for Friday to introduce him.\nThe Cardinals interviewed four candidates to replace fired coach Dave McGinnis. Green, 54, was the only one interviewed twice, and football operations vice president Rod Graves said he stood out.\n"In terms of a specific plan for the development and success of our team, he certainly laid out a detailed plan for us," Graves said. "He also did a great job of analyzing our personnel and so forth, and I think more than anything he was prepared."\nThe agreement created an odd marriage -- one of the winningest NFL coaches in the 1990s paired with a franchise that has had only one winning season since arriving in Arizona in 1988.\nGreen was 97-62 in 10 seasons with the Vikings, won four division titles and took them into the playoffs eight times and to the NFC championship game twice. But his 4-8 postseason record included an upset loss to Atlanta in the 1998 NFC title game and a 41-0 defeat by the New York Giants for the conference crown two years later.\nGary O'Hagan, Green's agent, said the deal that made him the team's 33rd head coach contains a club option for a fifth season. The Arizona Republic reported the deal as worth $10 million for four years, but Graves declined to discuss contract details.\nThe contract is a record for a Cardinals coach, in any case.\nMcGinnis received $900,000 for last season, his third full year at the helm. The Cardinals had a 4-12 record, and McGinnis was fired Dec. 29. The affable Texan was often characterized as too nice for the job -- something never viewed as Green's weakness.\nDuring his decade with the Vikings, Green was hit with allegations of sexual harassment, criticized for babying Randy Moss and threatened to sue some Vikings owners for part of the franchise. When owner Red McCombs fired Green on Jan. 4, 2002, he alluded to the coach's encroachment on front-office control.\nBut Graves believes Green is the coach who can take a winning team into the $355 million domed stadium the Cardinals will occupy in 2006.\n"He's excited by the prospect of the future," Graves said. "We're in great cap shape, we've got a great position in this coming draft, and we have the opportunity to make some moves in free agency. He felt this team was not that far away, and he was enthusiastic about it."\nO'Hagan considered the new stadium under construction in Glendale, Ariz., adjacent to the Phoenix Coyotes' new ice arena, one of the strong points of the job.\n"They need to have a winning team because they need to sell tickets," O'Hagan said.\nAfter his firing, Green became a football commentator on television, but continued to crave the action on the sideline. He recently interviewed for the head coaching jobs at Oakland and Washington.\nHe interviewed for several jobs last season, but wanted more control than any of the teams were willing to give him.\nA disciple of former 49ers coach Bill Walsh, Green went to the Vikings from Stanford, the second faltering college program he built into prominence after doing the same thing at Northwestern.\nThe Cardinals have had one winning season since 1984, one playoff appearance since 1982 and one playoff victory since winning the NFL title in 1947 as the Chicago Cardinals.\nGreen becomes the fourth black head coach in the NFL, the most the league has had at any one time. The other three are Herman Edwards of the Jets, Marvin Lewis of the Bengals and Tony Dungy of the Colts.\nThe hiring filled the third of seven coaching vacancies, all taken by former NFL head coaches. Tom Coughlin agreed to coach the Giants on Tuesday, and Joe Gibbs ended an 11-year retirement Wednesday to return to Washington.\nStill to be filled are vacancies in Atlanta, Buffalo, Chicago and Oakland.\nGiants coach Jim Fassel, who was Arizona's offensive coordinator in 1996, New England defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel and Philadelphia defensive coordinator Jim Johnson were the other candidates for the Arizona job.