Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, Kenny Pickett has had his hand size scrutinized for months now. If you haven't heard by now, Pickett has very small hands for an NFL quarterback. His hands measure from pinky to thumb at 8.5 inches. According to NFL history, there aren't many quarterbacks who have fared well with such size hands during their NFL careers. But plenty of quarterbacks with 9 inch hands have. So, does that half an inch matter? Everyone in Pittsburgh will be the judge when Pickett starts taking snaps for the Steelers whenever that may be.
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, Kenny Pickett, discusses future with team. Credit: NFL.com
According to Warren Sharp, who does predictive NFL analytics, there were 0 quarterbacks in the NFL with 8.5 inch hands prior to Pickett being drafted by the Steelers. Of the 663 quarterbacks with measured hand sizes since 1987, only 9 had smaller than 8.5" hands. And the last successful quarterback with 8.5 inch hands was former Steelers quarterback, Michael Vick.
On this week's episode of The Richard Sherman Podcast, the former All-Pro cornerback broke down his thoughts on this year's quarterback class post-draft. He began the segment talking about the Steelers and Pickett:
"I was even more surprised by Pittsburgh because they put up a huge smoke screen, made it seem like 'Hey, Malik Willis is our guy.' They're at every Pro Day, every everything. Tomlin's right next to him in every picture. You're like man they're talking to him, they're interviewing him, they had him on a visit, I think. Then here comes their pick and low and behold they take Kenny Pickett. Now in hindsight, you see it and you're like, oh that was a brilliant smoke screen."
There were quite a few people who believed that the Steelers were selecting Malik Willis when he was still on the board for their first round pick. But as we look back on it now, we should've known it was going to be Pickett. All the signs were there, we just didn't listen to them.
Pickett began wearing gloves to help him grip the football and save him from forced fumbles. While there is no official stat on how many fumbles Pickett had at Pitt, he had a lot. During his senior year, he was able to clean it up, but the concern is still there. There isn't a ton of quarterbacks who wear gloves on both hands, but we've seen Ben Roethlisberger do it in the past. Kurt Warner did it during his time, but most of the time for Roethlisberger, it was when he had a broken thumb and needed some extra protection. Towards the latter part of his career, he would only wear one glove on his non-throwing hand.
Sherman questions whether Pickett can be successful as a quarterback while wearing gloves on both hands at all times.
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"Do I think he's the quarterback of the future? I don't know. It's hard for me to trust a quarterback who wears gloves all the time. It's just different. It's just different. I just have a hard time with it, but he swings it. He's effective," Sherman continued. "We'll see how effective he is. And Pittsburgh, they do a great job of development. They haven't had another quarterback under center starting consistently since Ben Roethlisberger and I mean, Ben's been there for years and that, so that'll be interesting."
Sherman went onto suggest that Roethlisberger has been around for 13 or 14 years. No, he played 18. But we won't crucify him for that mistake. Sherman's concerns are valid until we see Pickett do it at the NFL level with the bigger football, and the pass rush that's constantly coming for the football. But the NFL is continuing to evolve. We've seen everyone start to wear a visor in recent years. Maybe the next trend will be quarterbacks with gloves. Maybe Pickett is going to be a pioneer. Steeler Nation can only hope.
