The Pittsburgh Steelers are surely interested at some level in Pitt quarterback Kenny Pickett. Pickett of course shares a training facility, and Heinz Field with the Steelers. The hot topic has been not whether he can lead a football team, but the size of his hands. The same topic was hot two years ago when Joe Burrow had small hands, and teams debated whether it would matter. Obviously the Cincinnati Bengals didn't care and drafted him #1 overall. It's worked out for them so far.
Now Pickett had his hands measured today, and he came in with an 8.5 inch measurement thumb to pinky finger.
perspective on Pickett's 8.5 inch hands
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) March 3, 2022
of 663 QBs w measured hand sizes since 1987, only 9 had smaller than 8.5" hands
there is no QB in the NFL with 8.5" hands
there has been no QB to enter the NFL in at least 5 yrs w 8.5" hands
last successful QB w 8.5" hands was Mike Vick
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Teams believe quarterbacks with smaller hands are more prone to fumbling. There isn't an official stat, but according to Pro Football Focus, Pickett fumbled the ball a ridiculous 38 times during his collegiate career.
Pickett has been doing hand exercises for the past few months in an effort to stretch his hands out so that he could get a little bit bigger of a measurement.
"The reason why I didn’t measure at the Senior Bowl was to have those extra couple weeks," Pickett said. "Just a common sense thing, having more time to work the exercises. ... Whatever it measures, it measures."
Some of the other notable quarterbacks with that measurement are Jeff Blake, Michael Vick and Kliff Kingsbury. Pickett said he didn't have a lot of conversation with teams about his hand size this week.
"There wasn’t much talk about that in all the formal interviews and informal interviews I’ve had so far this week."
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There were some rumblings from the Senior Bowl when bad weather hit practice. Some scouts suggested that Pickett struggled due to the weather, and his hand size. While it's probably likely that hand size does account for something, it probably isn't a tell-tale for how well a quarterback is going to do in the NFL.
Do you still want Pickett? Let us know in the comments below.
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