Big-armed QB Flacco creating buzz and more notes

Big-bodied QB Joe Flacco looks to prove his mobility with a solid 40 time at the combine. Simon Bruty/SI

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Also in this column: Colt Brennan's tumble, more notes.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Joe Flacco Fever is raging here at the NFL Scouting Combine, and I just might have caught it.

Got my first exposure to the University of Delaware quarterback here Friday morning, and what's not to like? The kid's glib, self-deprecating and he's treating the pre-draft buzz that surrounds him with just the right combination of self-confidence and a jaundiced eye.

"I'm a little bit surprised [by it],'' Flacco said. "I keep saying if I wasn't myself, I don't know if I'd like myself too much right now. I'd probably be sick of myself. But I don't think I have too much to prove at this point. If you watch the film, you can see enough.''

I haven't watched any film of Flacco yet. I've seen a few highlights from his days as a Blue Hen, but that's about it. But people I trust in the NFL have him pegged as a definite second-round prospect, with an outside shot of cracking the bottom of the first round if some team falls hard for him as their starter in 2010.

Flacco has a swagger to him, but he seems more bemused by his new celebrity than anything else. Asked if the hype surrounding his climb up teams' draft boards -- which started in earnest with a strong Senior Bowl showing last month -- gives him added confidence, he deflected the opportunity to strut.

"No, it doesn't give me any more confidence,'' Flacco said. "All I had to do was go home and get made fun of by all my family for how dorky I looked on TV.''

Having played at Division I-AA Delaware, Flacco carries the small-school label, but you can tell it kind of sticks in his craw. He played some at Pitt in 2004, but wound up transferring to Delaware and sitting out 2005 after coming to the conclusion that he wasn't going to beat out the Panthers' Tyler Palko.

"I think if you can play, you can play,'' Flacco said. "There's a lot of different reasons that guys play at the smaller level, but I think at the quarterback position, the competition is all relative. There are open guys and there are covered guys.

"I tell [teams] my story and they're going to take it for what it is. Hopefully they can see past a lot of it. I guess there is a little bit of difference, but everybody wants to make a big deal out of it. We played pretty good competition. We made it to a national championship, which nobody wants to talk about.''

But NFL people are talking about Flacco. At 6-foot-6, 236 pounds, he's a big-bodied quarterback with a big arm. The kind of arm that has scouts drooling. He had trouble taking snaps at the Senior Bowl after playing mostly from the shotgun formation at Delaware, and teams here want to see how much mobility he has for a big man (he said he's "4.6 or bust'' in Sunday's 40-yard dash). But nobody's questioning his ability to deliver the football.

"Flacco's exploded this year,'' NFL Network draft analyst Mike Mayock said Friday. "I went to watch him practice in Delaware [last season] and I went, 'Wow.' He's got a huge arm, the best arm in the draft. His feet need a lot of work, but he can make every throw. I think he's two or three years away, but some people think he can be the best quarterback of the entire class. He's got that kind of ability.''

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