Eisenberg: Why Teams At The Combine Envy Ravens

INDIANAPOLIS – While the players who will be taken in the April draft are poked, prodded, timed and scrutinized at the NFL scouting combine, coaches and personnel executives from each team take turns fielding questions from the national media.

You get what amounts to a status report on their teams, one after the other after the other, and inevitably, as they go whizzing by, it becomes hard not to break them into two distinct groups:

Those that are set at quarterback and those that aren't.

Not coincidentally, they're similar to the distinct groupings of winning and losing teams, or playoff contenders and pretenders.

It's easy to identify the teams that aren't set at quarterback – their people always end up fielding multiple questions about their problem at the position and whether the solution lies in the upcoming draft. Buffalo Bills Head Coach Chan Gailey barely had time to clear his throat before a tidal wave of Cam Newton questions slammed into him the other day. Tennessee's Mike Munchak followed Gailey with a mournful look as he conceded his team was looking for a new signal-caller.

"We all know it's a quarterback league . . . and there is no doubt we have uncertainty there," Munchak said. "You just have to wait until you find the right person."

There's a slightly desperate quality to the teams looking for that Mr. Right. They realize that even if they get the rest of their house in order they will still probably struggle until that major piece is in place. It's just the way pro football works now. In an offensive-minded, pass-happy league governed by rules that favor scoring, you're only going to go so far without a quarterback.

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Conversely, losing teams that have found their quarterbacks feel more optimistic about eventually seeing the light after years of darkness. The St. Louis Rams look a lot happier than the Titans this week even though both had losing records in 2010 because, well, the Rams have Sam Bradford and the Titans don't.

The Ravens crossed from one group to the other when they drafted Joe Flacco in the first round in 2008 and he turned out to be a winning quarterback.

They went from unsettled to settled, from slightly desperate to sure of themselves. Yes, they knew they would have to live through the growing pains that all promising young quarterbacks experience, but that was preferable to sorting through veteran options every year and hoping for the best.

When you come to the combine and see all 32 teams in action, you understand how crucial that one draft pick was for the Ravens, how it enabled them to chart a successful course in the coming years – how it brought stability to the organization.

Flacco has won 36 of 55 regular season and playoff games in three seasons, going through well-chronicled highs and lows along the way and strangely becoming something of a whipping boy for at least a small segment of the Ravens' fans.

They should take a trip to the combine and listen to other teams desperately contemplating unfulfilling options while praying they get the chance to do exactly what the Ravens did three years ago – target the right young quarterback and grab him.

When Ravens Head Coach John Harbaugh met the national media here Thursday, he fielded relatively benign questions about how the Ravens were going to tweak a winning team. He discussed the decision to give Flacco more responsibility and weighed in on whether he felt the team needed a receiver, cornerback or pass rusher (yes, yes and yes).

Those qualify as small-potato questions at the combine, where so many others teams are unsettled under center.

No one asked Harbaugh if he had any doubts about whether the Ravens actually are set at quarterback. Among people in the football know, there is no doubt.

Here at the combine, the fact that the Ravens have Flacco is considered one of the best things the organization has going for it. You're envied if you have stability and promise under center, a "growth" situation with major upside.

A lot of other teams would give anything to be in that position and not have to worry about whether Cam Newton, the self-proclaimed "entertainer and icon," is really who you want carrying your team for the next decade.

Get more insight from Director of Player Personnel Eric DeCosta and Director of College Scouting Joe Hortiz during the 2011 NFL Scouting Combine by following 1WinningDrive on Twitter.