Denny Green: 'Daunte Culpepper is back'

We interrupt your NFL browsing to bring you this post from the UFL conference call featuring Sacramento Mountain Lions coach Denny Green and starting quarterback Daunte Culpepper. Their names should ring a bell.

Denny and Daunte are reunited in this alternative league. Their first game is at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Hartford. Daunte is the starting QB and Denny is the second-year head coach who just proclaimed, "Daunte Culpepper is back."

Culpepper, who backed up 2009 NFL No. 1 overall pick Matthew Stafford in Detroit last season, said he was looking for a place where he could start. So he chose to play for Green in the same offense Green used when they were together with the Vikings.

"I definitely wanted to be a starter," Culpepper said. "I wanted a chance to be the starter. That opportunity wasn't there right now in the NFL. I could have waited until somebody got hurt or whatever. But why do that when I got a chance to go get ready to play and try to be a champion right now in the UFL? So that's the choice I made and I'm happy I made it. I think it's the right choice."

Green said he looked at every passing play that Culpepper was a part of in Detroit last year. He came away saying, "When Daunte Culpepper had a chance to make a play, he made a play. I was able to look at it and say Daunte still has all the great things to be a phenomenal player."

Green also said: ""I did the same thing with Kurt Warner a few years ago when I was at Arizona just to prove to him and to prove to everybody that Kurt Warner could actually play. That's what we did when he left New York and everybody thought he couldn't play. Of course, you know that story. I did the same thing with Daunte."

Culpepper is convinced he could be a starter in the NFL.

"There's not a question in my mind at all," Culpepper said. "I'm here with one of the biggest legend coaches in NFL history. He knows my talent. He knows what he has. And I'm confident in myself. So I'm just trying to go out and show a lot of the doubters that I'm still here and I can still play. That's why I'm working hard to go out and showcase that."

Denny talked about Culpepper's path from the brilliant college career, the quick start with the Vikings and the severe knee injury in 2005.

"Injury upset the apple cart, and it takes a real man to fight back from a very debilitating injury and then say, `OK, I'm back,'" Green said. "And Daunte Culpepper is back.And it's not how anybody sees it in the NFL because the NFL is the NFL and the United Football League is the United Football League. It's about having having a quarterback who is going to have a lot of fun and show some great things."