The Jets have hired David Lee as their quarterback coach. The announcment was made by ESPN’s Chris Mortensen.
Lee enters his ninth season in the NFL. Last season he was the Buffalo Bills’ quarterback coach.
He joined the Bills after spending the 2011 season as the offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach at Mississippi.
Prior to joining Ole Miss, Lee was the quarterbacks coach for the Miami Dolphins from 2008-2010 and played a vital role in reintroducing and transforming the Wildcat offense at the pro level. The Wildcat formation accounted for more than 1,000 plays and produced 15 plus touchdowns. Lee also guided the emergence of QB Chad Henne and Chad Pennington.
In 2008, Pennington was voted the NFL Comeback Player of the Year and a runner-up for NFL Player of the Year.
As Arkansas’ offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach in 2007, Lee presided over a Razorbacks offense ranked 12th in points per game (38.8) and 18th in yards per game (457.4) – both marks set school records. Arkansas threw 24 touchdown passes and only 10 interceptions.
In 2003, Lee entered the NFL as the Dallas Cowboys offensive quality control/QB coach. For four seasons, Lee helped develop Tony Romo from an undrafted college free agent in 2003 to a Pro Bowl selection in 2006. In Lee’s four years in Dallas, three different Cowboys signal-callers threw for 3,000 yards in a single season.
As an assistant coach/quarterbacks coach in 2001-02, Lee contributed to an Arkansas team that appeared in the Cotton Bowl and won the 2002 SEC Western Division title and advanced to the SEC Championship Game.
Lee served seven seasons at Rice University (1994-2000) as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. During his tenure, Rice produced six of the school’s top rushing totals, including a school-record 332.7 yards-per-game average in 1997. Rice ranked in the top 10 nationally in rushing three times in his tenure.
From 1989-1993, he was the head coach at Texas-El Paso before moving on to Rice as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 1994.
Lee coached quarterbacks and fullbacks at Arkansas from 1984-1988 and helped direct Razorback teams to a 45-15-1 record with five consecutive bowl appearances.
Promoted to offensive coordinator in 1988, Lee helped engineer Arkansas’s first Southwest Conference championship in nine years and first outright league title since 1965. The 1988 offensive unit committed just 11 turnovers in 11 games and led the nation in turnover ratio while featuring a pair of All-SWC sophomores.
Lee began his coaching career in 1975 at Tennessee-Martin where he tutored quarterbacks and receivers for two seasons while organizing the first Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter at UTM.
He spent the 1977 season as quarterbacks coach at his alma mater Vanderbilt before his first tenure at Ole Miss (1978-82). In 1983, Lee served as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at New Mexico.
Throughout his college coaching career, nine of his quarterbacks were drafted or signed free-agent deals for the NFL.
PERSONAL
A three-year letterman at Vanderbilt, Lee served as team captain and was named the team’s most valuable player in 1974 after quarterbacking the Commodores to a 7-3-2 record, including a 24-10 upset of No. 5 Florida. Lee was voted SEC Player of the Week by the Associated Press after leading Vanderbilt to its first win over the Gators in 15 years.
Lee went on to lead the SEC in passing and guided his team to a 6-6 tie with Texas Tech in the Peach Bowl. That same season, Lee served as president of Vanderbilt’s FCA chapter. Lee earned an undergraduate degree in history from Vanderbilt in 1975.
A native of Dexter, Mo., Lee played high school football at Woodham High School in Pensacola, Fla., where he graduated in 1971. Lee is married to the former Lynne Kazanowski. The couple has four children – daughters Dana and Shannon, and sons Brian and Jordan.
