There are decisions -- either/or, A or B -- that define a life, a career. Whom do you marry? Where do you live? Who is your quarterback of the future?

	Michael Vick would most likely sit and watch for a year before starting for the Chargers.

On April 18, 1998, Bill Polian found himself in that terrifying and exhilarating position. Peyton Manning or Ryan Leaf -- which quarterback would deliver the Indianapolis Colts from their sad station as the worst team in the NFL? It was not as difficult a decision as you might think.

"We looked at both in the abstract," Polian, the Colts' president, explained. "And then we took the profiles we developed and overlaid that onto our need situation. We said, 'This player is going to have to come in and start from day one. He'll have to play with a young team, where the only established players were Marvin Harrison and Marshall Faulk. Not only that, he is replacing arguably the most popular professional football player in Indianapolis history in Jim Harbaugh, and he's playing in the toughest division in football.'

"Peyton's fourth year in school, his lifelong preparation for the job, the support system in place all his life -- there was no mentor necessary (because) he lived with one for 22 years. And he, himself, had sterling personal qualities, self-confidence -- all of those things were, quite honestly, a little bit higher than Ryan's.

"When we looked at it from that perspective, it became quite obvious."

Leaf had superior physical talent; Manning's workouts were less than impressive. But Polian and the Colts were rewarded for seeing past that little wobble in Manning's ball. Manning, the No. 1 pick of the 1998 draft, is one of the best quarterbacks in the game today. Leaf, drafted No. 2 by the San Diego Chargers, has been a terrible disappointment. The Chargers, in an odd, back-to-the-future kind of way, were the worst team in football (1-15) last season. And so, they have a second chance to make a franchise-altering decision with the first pick in the April 21 draft.

Quarterbacks are critical to a team's success, but rarely as much as we would like to think. The utilitarian Trent Dilfer, the No. 6 pick of the 1994 draft, was seen as a bust in Tampa Bay but emerged to win Super Bowl XXXV with the Baltimore Ravens. Of course, his life will be dogged by this caveat: He had one of the best defenses ever playing on the other side of the ball.

With first-round quarterbacks, you never know. For every Drew Bledsoe, there is a Rick Mirer. For every Heath Shuler and Dilfer there are a Steve McNair and a Kerry Collins. A year after the 1999 draft, it wasn't yet clear which of the five first-round quarterbacks were true players. We now know that Donovan McNabb and Daunte Culpepper were good decisions and, as a result, Philadelphia and Minnesota were in the playoffs. The jury is still out on Tim Couch, Akili Smith and Cade McNown, not to mention their teams in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Chicago.

"The right decision is critical," said Michael Huyghue, the Jacksonville Jaguars' senior vice president of football operations. "The draft has become more and more important, in every round, and there is no greater emphasis than in the first round. You must have sudden impact."

Jerry Angelo, director of pro personnel for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, insists that no matter how much analysis a team does there will always be an unknown factor.

"It's still a projection," Angelo said. "There are going to be variables you can't put in black and white. Is he the right fit? What about beyond the talent? What's the learning curve, the maturation curve? Nobody can answer that for sure. Quarterback is the hardest position to see the future."

The two guys who guessed wrong for the Chargers last time -- general manager Bobby Beathard and head coach Kevin Gilbride -- are, perhaps not coincidentally, gone. Now new GM John Butler and new offensive coordinator Norv Turner will help head coach Mike Riley make the critical-mass decision.

"There will be a lot of discussion, a lot of thought all the way up to (draft day)," Butler said. "There will always be research and more research -- and not on one individual. You have to know everybody real well if, indeed, other scenarios come into play."

As George Young, the NFL's senior vice president of football operations, says, it still gets down to judgment. "You can have as many numbers as you want. I think it was (French chemist) Louis Pasteur who said, 'Luck favors the prepared mind.' "

Time, not talent the issue
Lack of preparation is rarely an issue in the NFL, where football is a business of increasingly numbing proportion. The NFL's scouting combine begins Feb. 22 in Indianapolis, signaling the official beginning of the draft season. But make no mistake, when all the inspecting, detecting and rejecting is done, Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick will be the first pick.

Quarterback class of 2001

Call this quarterback class 2001, a space odyssey. That's because the space between Virginia Tech's Michael Vick and everybody else can be measured in light years. Even though he's not expected to play much his first season, the underclassman is expected to be the draft's top pick -- by San Diego or a team willing to trade up for him. "This isn't 1999," ESPN draft expert Mel Kiper said. "After Vick, there's a big drop-off." In Kiper's mock draft, Vick is the first quarterback going in the first round, but he has Purdue's Drew Brees -- thanks to the scarcity of quality quarterbacks -- penciled in at the bottom of the first round. Other draft experts have Brees going in the middle of the round. Arm strength is a question here. Florida State's Chris Weinke is a possible second-round pick. The field is rounded out by Rutgers' Mike McMahon and Jesse Palmer of Florida. — Greg Garber

The personnel people will tell you that without the presence of 36 underclassmen who have all been granted special eligibility by the league, the first round would be woeful, indeed. All of those juniors and third-year sophomores in the mix makes it much more palatable, and it will begin with Vick, who elected to leave Virginia Tech after only two seasons.

It was a difficult decision for Vick, a sensational talent who still needs substantial seasoning. Hokies head coach Frank Beamer would have liked Vick to return for at least one more season for a run at the Heisman Trophy and a national championship. After seeking council from Polian, Houston Texans general manager Charley Casserly and McNabb on a conference call last month, Vick elected to come out, knowing he was the likely first overall pick.

Apparently, it wasn't just the money -- he will command a $50 million contract and an eight-figure signing bonus -- or the fear of injury that prompted his decision, but a fear of the expansion Texans, who will have the first pick in the 2002 draft. After watching Couch get crushed for two seasons in Cleveland, Vick and his advisors came to the conclusion that San Diego, despite the hideous 1-15 record, was a far friendlier place to land. Even a trade to a team like Atlanta, Dallas or Seattle would place Vick in a far better situation than with the first-year Texans a year later, something that Michigan's Drew Henson may discover.

Even usually composed scouts start to foam at the mouth when the subject of Vick's talent comes up. He is exceptionally fast and has a very strong arm. With the proper nurturing environment and tons of patience, he could become the West Coast version of McNabb. Which brings us to Vick's downside. Size is an issue; he stands 6 feet tall and weighs around 215 pounds. Scouts worry about his durability, pointing to injuries this past season. And he needs a lot of work. Two seasons of running through the defenses of Temple, Boston College and Rutgers cannot begin to prepare him for Jevon Kearse, Warren Sapp and Corey Simon.

"This kid isn't going to be ready right away," said Mel Kiper, ESPN's draft guru. "So, is he capable of developing quickly? Or, like McNair, is he ready three, four years out? I expect the second year he'll be ready. Sit him down, let him watch, like Culpepper did."

Culpepper's is the optimistic timetable. Wide receiver Randy Moss threw more passes (one) than Culpepper did (zero) in his rookie season of 1999, but Culpepper went to the Pro Bowl in 2000 and led his team to the NFC championship game. McNair took a little longer. He started only six games in his first two seasons before becoming a regular. In his third full season as a starter, McNair led the Tennessee Titans to the Super Bowl.

Of course, McNair and Culpepper both played four years of college ball, at Alcorn State and Central Florida, respectively -- and they still needed time to assimilate NFL defenses. To this point, Vick has not shown a lot of patience in the pocket.

"(In the NFL), he better go through his progressions: the second, third and fourth options," Kiper said. "He doesn't do that at all. It's all improvisation. One guy I talked to said he could be an offensive coordinator's nightmare. I think he has a lot of Steve Young potential. He's a lefty who can run, make things happen."

But will he learn to pass with anything approaching the deft touch that brought Young the league's best all-time passer rating? That will depend on the support system he finds in San Diego. Turner, it's worth noting, helped turn the Cowboys' Troy Aikman into a future Hall of Fame quarterback. And can the Chargers afford to wait for Vick to blossom? Or will they sign Washington's Brad Johnson as a free agent/mentor?

"What's the timetable?" Angelo asked. "Is it a Steve McNair deal? Or is it a Kordell Stewart thing? I don't know anybody that doesn't want to see that impact player in the first two years. In that second year, he's got to be the guy we're building around."

Down, but not out
Three years before he drafted Manning for the Colts, Polian was in precisely the same dizzying position as the general manager of the Carolina Panthers. The expansion franchise had the first pick in the draft and all the pressure that comes with it.

The Panthers had USC offensive tackle Tony Boselli ranked as the No. 1 pick, but they thought a quarterback would better serve the franchise. Based on the scouting reports, McNair and Penn State's Collins were a force with the top pick. So Polian let it be known that Carolina would be willing to trade down, as long as they would be in position to draft McNair or Collins.

"As I recall, we determined it was the No. 6 spot," Polian said. "And that's exactly how it worked out. Everybody was happy, well, except (Cincinnati's) Mike (Brown)."

The Bengals sent their first- and second-round picks to Carolina for the first pick and used it for Penn State running back Ki-Jana Carter. The Jaguars scooped up Boselli and the Houston Oilers took McNair at No. 3. When the Panthers came up with the Bengals' No. 5 pick, they used it to pounce on Collins. Later, they took defensive end Shawn King with Cincinnati's No. 36 pick.

"Ultimately, we thought the quarterback had more value," Polian said. "And Kerry was great for us. He's the only quarterback I know of that took two different teams to the conference championships."

Is Vick an insta-start Manning or a time-released McNair? It may come down to what the Chargers can get for that top pick.

"If someone trades up to get Vick and is willing to mortgage the future and give up top picks, great," Kiper said. "But is that prudent? Atlanta at No. 5, (Chris) Chandler could be the mentor there. What will San Diego do? That's where it really becomes interesting."

One big factor in Vick's favor is the great success of McNabb and Culpepper. NFL personnel men used to wonder whether African-American quarterbacks could master the position. Now they are lining up to draft "athletic, mobile" quarterbacks. Color no longer seems to matter.

"The Class of '99, no question it helps Vick," Polian said. "To pass the ball with 100 percent effectiveness is not critical right away if you can make some plays with your feet. You can play earlier, too."

Said Huyghue: "He played in a big program, has a good capacity to learn, good athletic ability, competitive drive and leadership ability. Nobody is asking those kinds of questions anymore."

Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com.