Who's Teaching Your Quarterback?

John Fox may have given Jake Delhomme a vote of confidence yesterday, but that doesn't change the fact that Jake has a nasty habit of throwing off his back foot, causing a lot of balls to sail high and away from receivers. It was clear from watching the last two games that Jake's accuracy has slipped in the last few weeks. These are the sort of mechanics that can usually be fixed by a decent quarterbacks coach.

Meet Mike McCoy. This former Calgary Stampeder has been the Carolina Panthers' quarterbacks coach since Delhomme arrived in Charlotte. In addition to relaying play calls from offensive coordinator Dan Henning (*groan*) to Delhomme during games, McCoy is the guy who works with Delhomme and Chris Weinke on their mechanics during the week.

So why does Jake still throw off his back foot? Why does his accuracy and decision making seem to suffer so much during critical periods in the game? I think these are perfectly valid questions for the QB coach, don't you think?

Last year during the Super Bowl, ESPN did a feature on former Seattle Seahawks quarterback Jim Zorn, who is now the team's QB coach and who has put Matt Hasselbeck through his paces to make sure his mechanics are as close to perfect as possible. Jake's mechanics haven't been so close to perfect these last few weeks, and this is far from the first time that's been the case. Perhaps QB coaches are more important than we all thought. Just ask New York Giants fans.

Maybe we should be looking more closely at what McCoy is doing to help Delhomme with his game. Right now, it sure doesn't seem like much.