David Lee. History Shows He Is Not Our Man!

As pointed out in an article a little further down the page, the Jets are currently considering hiring David Lee, likely as a replacement for Matt Cavanaugh's Quarterback coaching position. Also as pointed out, Lee has just finished a year with the Ole Miss football team guiding them to a horrendous 114th position in total offence. No Ole Miss do not have the weapons of other SEC powerhouses but by any standards that is absolutely terrible. However that was as a play caller, the position with the Jets would be as a quarterbacks coach, and as you can see after the jump. He has that key word in abundance, experience. However, you will also see why there are severe reservations

David Lee has been coaching quarterbacks for over 35 years, starting in 1975 with the University of Tennessee Martin, right up to the end of 2010 with the Dolphins and 2011 if you include offensive coordinator positions with various schools in the NCAA football division. To go over every quarterback he has ever tutored would be a very long drawn out process, if you look back through many teams he has coached included Rice and Arkansas you will notice a lack of any real QB talent. A more run orientated offence which makes it near impossible to evaluate and very little to any development of any high end QB talent.

His first year in 2003 with Dallas as the offensive quality control coach (don't ask me specifically for the job description here), the Cowboys QB Quincy Carter threw for 57.8% completion, 17 touchdowns and 21 interceptions. in 2004 holding the same position, our good friend Vinny Testaverde threw for a 60% completion and 17 touchdowns and 20 interceptions. As offensive coordinator in 2005, he had Drew Bledsoe throw for 60% and 23 touchdowns and 17 interceptions.

2006 was perhaps his best year, as he led the Cowboys to a respectable 5th place finish in total offence and yards per game, and his QB Tony Romo finished 5th in QB rating. However Romo had done his time in the trenches as a 4 year back-up.

Most relevant perhaps is his time as Quarterbacks coach with the Miami Dolphins. He had the luxury of working with Chad Pennington in 2008 as Chad had a solid impressive season completing 67.4% of his passes for 19 touchdowns and 7 interceptions while compiling a 11-5 record. In 2009 however Chad Henne took over after Pennington's injury and although he completed a respectable 60.8% of his passes, he threw 14 interceptions. In 2010 he made little improvement and threw 19 interceptions while his completion percentage stayed pretty stagnant at 61.4%.

Looking through his history, he really has never developed a quarterback. His quarterbacks apart from Pennington (who was already a coach in himself) have a history of struggling to read defences and throwing too many interceptions and turning the ball over. At times in 2010 Chad Henne looked petrified and unprepared for blitz packages and that caused panick and mistimed throws.

We need Sanchez to take care of the football and improve in reading defences and making better decisions. David Lee is a lifelong college coach with short stints in the NFL. As a NCAA coach he had many gimmicks, no QB's and a reliance on the run. He introduced the Wildcat to the NFL and won innovation of the year, but that is no old. I don't mind David as a NCAA coach, but as an NFL QB coach we are better off going with someone like Chad. Who although he has no experience. He will be able to teach Sanchez a thing or two about reading a defence.

So thanks David, but no thanks. Not only should we not hire him, he is actually the exact opposite of what Sanchez needs.