“Instead of him asking me a bunch questions that I didn’t know the answers to I asked him a few questions and tried to strike up a conversation,” Flacco laughed. “I really didn’t want to be quizzed because I didn’t want to have the wrong answers. I sort of knew what most of it was but I wanted to avoid it, honestly. We watched a little Delaware tape and he asked me to describe what I was seeing and that was easy. But I was really glad when he was more interested in getting to know me than going through that playbook he sent me.”
When Cameron suggested they get lunch, Flacco suggested that they leave the playbooks in the office. They went to the large cafeteria inside the complex and chatted about life and family and football. Flacco toured the facility and shook hands with all of the appropriate people, just like he had with the Rams and Vikings, and drove back to Audubon and waited.
On the Thursday before the draft, Delaware head coach K.C. Keeler’s phone rang. It was John Harbaugh and Cam Cameron. They wanted some personal information on Flacco and were pressing Keeler on his leadership ability.
“I guess Ozzie Newsome had questioned Joe on why he wasn’t the team captain,” Keeler said. “Joe called me and said, ‘Coach this is bull. You know that was my team.’ It was kind of a unique situation because we had a four-year starter named Omar Cuff, an All- American at one captain spot in the offense and Mike Burns who graduated in three and a half years as an All-American as the other. They were two guys who were in the program a lot longer than Joe was, but the team took on Joe’s personality. So I told them a story about us playing in Northern Iowa and we’re getting run out of dodge in a playoff game by the No. 1 team in the country. They were the best team we had ever played – even better than any of the Navy teams. Really, it was our biggest test ever. It was 10-0 and it’s going to be 40 to 0 before we know it. Everything is going wrong, and Joe gathers the guys on the sideline and it’s loud and we’re in a dome and you can’t even hear yourself think and Joe’s screaming, ‘Someone make a play. Someone just make a play, just calm down and someone make a play!’
“Our left tackle cuts their All-American defensive end loose and he’s chasing Joe and Joe’s running towards their sideline and he throws 50 yards in the air to a receiver on the sideline off his back foot and, boom, someone made a play. That someone was Joe. Everyone just took a deep breath, and we went on to score and won the game by 12 points against the best team in the country at their place. So I told Cam and John that story and Cam felt that was good information to take into the draft because they wanted to know that this kid could lead.”
Despite that calm on the outside and lack of demonstrative emotion, there was a fire in the belly of Joe Flacco.
K.C. Keeler knew because he saw it every day for three years.
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“Joe didn’t care about passing stats or yardage or touchdown throws,” Keeler said. “He only cared that we won. That’s just who Joe is. I didn’t get a finished product when I got him, but he was so far along in terms of his morality and his interest in being a great teammate. I mean his parents did a phenomenal job in raising him. One day I said to him, ‘Just one time, throw a touchdown pass and go down our home sideline and pound on your chest, point in the stands and talk trash.’ Actually, I was kidding because that’s not my style either. His response was funny. He got flustered and he said, ‘Ah, Coach my brothers would just beat me up and make fun of me when I get home, and I can’t imagine what my mom and dad would say after the game. I just can’t do that.’ ”
On draft day, the Ravens were in no man’s land with the eighth pick. No one woke up believing there was anything reasonable they could trade to land Matt Ryan, who wound up going with the No. 3 pick to the Atlanta Falcons as everyone had expected.
Newsome worked the phones – as he had been for a month – looking for potential scenarios to trade back because they felt they would be able to get Flacco, Chad Henne or Brian Brohm (who they probably wouldn’t have taken at all) much later in the day.
Henne was an interesting prospect because he had become a very distant third choice as Flacco continued to impress everyone in the Ravens brain trust. Henne was a tremendous high school player at Wilson High School in Reading, Pennsylvania, recruited all over the country before playing for four years at Michigan and breaking virtually every passing record in Ann Arbor. Many scouts around the country liked him over Joe Flacco simply because it was easier to like the guy from Michigan than it was the guy from Delaware. And, from a political angle, as a scout it’s much easier to stick your neck out for a Big 10 quarterback than a kid from Division I-AA if you’re talking about a franchise quarterback in the NFL.
