Atlanta at Minnesota


Breaking down the Falcons and Vikings


Focal Point: Anderson vs. Vikings defense

MINNEAPOLIS -- A winter chill was whipping through the Twin Cities in late January of 1992 as Dennis Green stood outside of the downtown Hyatt Regency. Green, named head coach of the Minnesota Vikings just two weeks earlier, was talking with a group of fans about the Super Bowl, which was going to be played a few blocks away at the Metrodome later that week.

	In his seventh season with the Vikings, Dennis Green is one win away from his first Super Bowl.

"This is what it's all about," Green said. "We will have a new attitude. Nothing less than a championship is acceptable. The Vikings will get back to the Super Bowl, no question."

Seven years later, Green was at the same hotel. He was inside the building this time, trading the purple-and-gold windbreaker and jeans for a sharp brown tweed suit. While the wardrobe has definitely improved and several pounds have been shed, the conversation was eerily similar.

"A championship is the goal," he said early Friday evening. "That's what it's all about."

The prophecy sounded like coach-speak earlier in the decade, but Green's vision has nearly been realized. The Vikings will play the Falcons in Sunday's NFC Championship Game, with the winner headed off to Miami for Super Bowl XXXIII. Under the most recent season of Green's fiery reign as head coach, the Vikings have returned to prominence. The team is a scorch-the-earth offshoot of his personality: aggressive, explosive, fast-paced and relentless. There is fearsome balance -- the highest-scoring team in the NFL and a solid defense sandwiched around a team chemistry that might not be equaled within any of the league's 29 other locker rooms.

The blueprint exists just as Green always believed it would, despite turbulence that saw him voluntarily walk away or get fired less than a year ago, depending on what story one listens to.

Irony? Perhaps. Survival? Definitely. Green has always been a survivor, armed with self-confidence, ambition and a strong sense of his way being the only way. It started during high school in Harrisburg, Pa., where he was an all-state athlete and student-body president. It continued at the University of Iowa, where he was a decent running back who also led a player boycott that had racial undertones. Stints with Bill Walsh and the 49ers helped shape the focus, while head-coaching jobs at Northwestern and Stanford verified a longtime belief that success couldn't be achieved unless a person has total control of his surrounding environment.

"Wherever we (re: I) have gone, we've battled our way back to the top," Green said. "With the 49ers, Northwestern, Stanford, here . To get there, you have to have a lot of guts, a lot of resolve. You have to stick with what you believe in, and be strong enough to not let others talk you out of that."

Winning is the No. 1 objective for Green, and he won't let anything get in his way. Total control. At Stanford, it meant having say in everything, from meals at the training table to the cover of the media guide. With the Vikings, it means everything within the football operation, which he runs with the same mentality that helped George Patton roll through North Africa and Europe during the mid-to-late stages of World War II.

"The thing every coach wants to have is the capabilities to help put the team together," he said. "There are a lot of dynamics. The chemistry is everything. So you know the kind of system you are going to run on offense and defense. You know that more than anyone else. You know the kind of players that you want to operate that system. And then you want to be able to, on an ongoing basis, be in communication with the personnel people to help improve that team, or make all of those decisions you have to make along the way."

	"	Wherever we have gone, we've battled our way back to the top. With the 49ers, Northwestern, Stanford, here ... To get there, you have to have a lot of guts, a lot of resolve. You have to stick with what you believe in, and be strong enough to not let others talk you out of that. "
		--  Dennis Green

Obviously, there's something to this message. All four coaches in both championship games this weekend -- Green, Atlanta's Dan Reeves, New York's Bill Parcells and Denver's Mike Shanahan -- control all football operations of their respective teams.

"I don't think it is coincidence," Green said. "The clear-cut way to go now, the future, is really coaching involvement . In this age where you have unrestricted free agency, you have to make decisions all of the time. I think those decisions have to be based on the people that have the most influence on the players, and that is the coaching."

Green has always fought hard to get the power necessary to achieve his goals. At Northwestern, he demanded respect from within the academic community and funds from the alumni. At Stanford, he used offers from Arizona State and Texas to speed up negotiations for a contract extension, a deal he never signed because the Vikings called. And in Minnesota, he constantly fought with an ownership cartel that quickly realized they weren't dealing with the typical "grateful-for-the-opportunity" first-time NFL head coach.

Green survived. The ownership cartel didn't. The team was sold earlier this year to San Antonio businessman Red McCombs, who gave Green both a vote of confidence and the power the coach requested, er, demanded.

A couple of months later, here we are, right where seven years ago Dennis Green said the Vikings would be.

Redemption? Perhaps. Vindication? Definitely, although Green won't admit it.

"Well, I don't look at it that way," he said with a small hint of a smile. "I don't look back, only forward. You have to believe in what you're doing, believe in your system, and believe in the players you're coaching.

"That's what it's all about."