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Former Minnesota Vikings and Arizona Cardinals head coach Dennis Green passed away early Friday morning after suffering cardiac arrest. He was 67 years old.

Green spent 17 years as a coach in the NFL. He was a special teams coordinator with the 49ers for a season and later their wide receivers coach for three seasons in the 1980s. After a stint as the head coach of Stanford University, Green returned to the NFL and led the Vikings from 1992 through 2001. He returned three years later as the head coach of the Cardinals from 2004 through 2006. Prior to Tony Dungy winning Super Bowl XLI with the Colts, Green's 1998 season with the Vikings was the most successful ever by an African-American head coach.

He finished his NFL career with a win-loss record of 113-94 (0.546 winning percentage) in the regular season and 4-8 in the postseason. The 113 wins place 33rd on the NFL's all-time list.

At the time Green was hired by the Vikings in 1992, he was only the second African-American head coach in the modern NFL (Art Shell being the first) and the third ever (after Shell and Fritz Pollard). On the day of his hiring, Green, in charismatic fashion, announced, "There's a new sheriff in town."

Green's teams in Minnesota ranked in the top-10 in the NFL in yards and points five times each, and the 1998 team set an all-time record for points scored in a season that stood until 2007, when it was broken by the New England Patriots. (The record is now held by the 2013 Denver Broncos.) The Vikings finished .500 or better in each of Green's first nine seasons with the team, missing the playoffs only once. They compiled a record of 92-52 during those nine years, tied with the Packers for second-best in the NFL behind only the 49ers. Their point differential was fifth behind the 49ers, Cowboys, Broncos, and Packers. In 2001, they finally slipped below .500, and Green was bought out prior to the last game of the season.

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Dennis Green was 4-8 in the playoffs in 13 NFL seasons. Getty Images

Green then spent two years as an analyst on ESPN before returning to coaching with the Arizona Cardinals. His three-year tenure in the desert was not as successful as his stint in Minnesota, as the Cards failed to reach the playoffs or even crack .500 during his three seasons there. However, Green did contribute to the evolution of the Cardinals over the few seasons after he left the team, due to some excellent drafting while he was in charge. Arizona drafted Larry Fitzgerald, Karlos Dansby, Darnell Dockett, and Antrel Rolle during Green's first two years with the team. All four players became major contributors in short order and were focal points on the team that went to the Super Bowl in 2008.

Green's tenure with the Cardinals also gave the NFL one of its most famous outbursts of all time. After losing a game to the Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football, Green ripped into his team at the post-game press conference and introduced "They are who we thought they were!" into the NFL lexicon forever.

The Cardinals wound up winning four of their final seven games after Green's tirade, but he was still fired at the end of the season. He eventually resurfaced in 2009 as the head coach of the California Redwoods (later renamed the Sacramento Mountain Lions) of the newly-formed United Football League. He stayed there for three seasons, compiling a record of 8-11, before he left the team and sued the league for lack of payment of $1.5 million.

Green's family, the NFL, and the Cardinals all released statements in the wake of his passing:

Many people in the NFL family mourned Green's death on Twitter, some noting in particular his role as a trail blazer and his effect on African-Americans in the NFL.