The hand size of the quarterback position has always been a hot topic at the combine, as NFL teams prefer QBs that have large hands.
The consensus for the smallest a QB’s hands should be is a minimum of nine inches. Unfortunately, one of the top QB prospects in this year’s draft had his hands measured smaller, which could impact his draft selection.
Jalen Milroe’s Hand Size Measured At 8.8 Inches
While Milroe, the QB prospect out of Alabama, was never expected to be a first-round pick, he is thought of as either the third or fourth-best QB prospect in this year’s draft. So, him coming in with hands smaller than nine inches is somewhat of a big deal, as he already had his flaws as a prospect before this coming out.
For context, his hands being measured in at 8.8 inches is the smallest since Kenny Pickett, and that was a huge topic of conversation at the time. Of course, Pickett was still selected in the first round, but teams generally had a first-round grade on him, which is not the case with Milroe.
According to ESPN Stats & Information, there were 39 QBs drafted in the first round from 2008 to 2020, and their average hand size was 9.7 inches. Since then, the only quarterback drafted in the first round that had smaller than nine-inch hands was Kenny Pickett, as referenced earlier.
Do bigger hands mean a better quarterback? Of course not. Mark Sanchez had the biggest hands of any QB drafted in the first round from 2008 to 2020, with 10 and 1/2 inch hands. Of current QBs, Will Levis has the largest hands in the NFL, with his measuring in at 10 and 5/8 inches.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the QBs with the smallest hands are Joe Burrow and Jared Goff, who both have nine-inch hands. Nobody is going to argue Levis or Sanchez over Burrow and Goff, so it does appear as though as long as the quarterback meets the nine-inch minimum, they will be fine in that regard.
When Burrow was going through the draft process, he had a good response to all the questions regarding his hand size, joking that he was “considering retirement” after being informed that the football would be “slipping out” of his “tiny hands.”
Considering retirement after I was informed the football will be slipping out of my tiny hands. Please keep me in your thoughts.
— Joey Burrow (@JoeyB) February 24, 2020
Luckily for Burrow, his “tiny hands” seem to be working just fine in the NFL, as he has led the Bengals to the Super Bowl and AFC Championship in two playoff runs with the team.
In terms of how this will impact Milroe’s draft stock, that remains to be seen, but the latest mock draft from PFSN has Milroe going at pick No. 71 to the New Orleans Saints.