Miami lands Green

DAVIE, Fla. – Trent Green swallowed hard, then tried to list every Miami Dolphins starting quarterback since Dan Marino’s retirement seven seasons ago.

It took him a minute, but he eventually got most of the 10 names right.

“You’re not going to find anyone to replace Dan Marino,” Green said.

Fortunately for Green, the Dolphins aren’t asking him to replace Marino. They’re merely asking him to replace Daunte Culpepper.

Green’s long-awaited trade to Miami finally got done Wednesday, after he passed a physical and was acquired from the Kansas City Chiefs in exchange for a fifth-round draft pick in 2008. The deal was finished hours after Dolphins general manager Randy Mueller and coach Cam Cameron told Culpepper they would try to trade him, essentially ending his one-year stint in South Florida.

Culpepper wasn’t happy with that development, saying he is “not interested in being traded.” But the 36-year-old Green was ecstatic that the move he’d waited weeks for finally became reality.

“I do feel for his situation,” Green said. “It’s no fun. I went through it, obviously, in Kansas City this past few months. … Hopefully, things will get cleared up quickly for him, because I know it’s no fun. The whole hanging-in-limbo thing, that’s not fun for anybody.”

Green agreed to a new contract with the Dolphins weeks ago, once he became convinced that Kansas City, for whom he spent 5 1/2 seasons as a starter, wouldn’t give him a fair chance to compete with Brodie Croyle and Damon Huard – one of those other Dolphins starters besides Marino since 1999 – for the starting job in 2007.

Green threw for 21,459 yards and 118 touchdowns in Kansas City, but missed eight games last season because of a concussion suffered in the season opener.

“They wanted to get younger,” said Green, who had three years left on his deal in Kansas City.

Culpepper was hobbled in his four-game on-field stint, getting sacked 21 times before Miami shut him down for the remainder of the year. When Mueller and Cameron learned Green was available earlier this off-season, they didn’t hesitate beginning pursuit.

Culpepper is due to make $5.5 million this season and is still trying to recover from surgery to repair three torn right knee ligaments, an injury suffered in 2005 when he was with the Minnesota Vikings. He received clearance from members of the Dolphins’ medical staff to resume football activity earlier this week.

“It will be up to them to either keep me under contract or release me,” Culpepper said in an e-mail.

“In the meantime I will continue to work out at the facility with the team and prepare myself for training camp, wherever it may be.”