The Ravens knew they needed an all-weather quarterback because of the conditions in AFC North cities. The most important games will be won in December and January on days that could be far worse than a little gusty rain on the Gulf Coast.
“He was not affected by the wind that day,” DeCosta said. “He was throwing the hell out of the ball. He had big hands, he had played in bad weather before and it really wasn’t bothering him and that really impressed us.”
A month later, Flacco showed up in Indianapolis for the NFL combine – the annual poke and prod fest where potential draftees spend several days running drills, getting medically cleared and examined in every way imaginable and interviewing with NFL coaches.
It’s essentially the biggest job fair of the year for NFL teams to cross examine as many as 60 players in hotel suites after watching them on the field like a cattle show.
Flacco met with the Ravens in Indianapolis and impressed them enough to warrant the entire posse setting up a Pro Day in Newark in March to watch Flacco work out privately. Keep in mind, even with all of this attention on Flacco, he was still only the second choice to Ryan, who it was clear the Ravens would have to give up about half of a draft to move up six spots to select even if they did like him enough and have the moxie to pull off a draft blockbuster deal.
But Flacco was becoming more intriguing with every touch, every visit, every throw.
“I remember the first time Hue Jackson called me into his office and asked me about quarterbacks I said, ‘Coach we have a kid we need to look from Delaware,’” Douglas said. “Hue said, ‘Delaware?’ and I said, ‘Trust me. You just need to see him throw the ball.’”
Apparently just saying the word “Delaware” and “quarterback” brought great skepticism from virtually everyone in the scouting community.
Five representatives of the Baltimore Ravens staff – Cam Cameron, Hue Jackson, Eric DeCosta, Joe Hortiz and Joe Douglas – piled into DeCosta’s SUV and drove from The Castle in Owings Mills to Newark and met Joe Flacco on a cold, grey March day outside the Carpenter Center on campus.
Cameron, who was reluctant to even attend because he was trying to install his offense and didn’t want to lose a valuable day of work, was the first one to greet Flacco with a bag of footballs. But the choice of the workout location was odd.
“It was like a rocky, dirty field,” said DeCosta, who along with Douglas, attended a similar “Pro Day,” which is a workout set up by an agent for all of the teams to attend in one sitting, for Matt Ryan the previous week. Ryan’s workout in Boston, including his lengthy warm up, was completely scripted and regimented by his agent to put him in the best possible light. He threw from hash marks on a perfectly manicured football field with 10 teams watching him.
It was like a Hollywood, made-for-television workout.
Meanwhile, a week later in Delaware, it was more like a scene from Rocky’s basement in Philadelphia.
“This wasn’t even a real field,” Douglas said of Flacco’s field in Newark. “There were no lines, just grass.”
Flacco showed up with one football, greeted Jackson and shook hands with Cameron and said, “Let’s go! What do you want me to do?”
“Joe just walked out there and started slinging the football,” Douglas said. “We brought in a couple of wide receivers that he didn’t know and he didn’t even warm up. He said he didn’t need to warm up. That’s Joe.”
