(He shook Kenny Pickett’s hands at last season’s ACC media days, but doesn’t remember them as particularly small.) “You have people that are making decisions over your career and they might not like a left-handed quarterback. That sounds funny, but it's true,” says the former Buffalo Bills quarterback. “Some coaches like guys because of how they sit in the chair. Burrow, Murray, and Mahomes have all gone on to stellar NFL success, and at least one has proven his hands are big enough to hold a Lombardi Trophy.ĮJ Manuel, whose 10 3/8” frisbees were the biggest among quarterbacks in the 2013 NFL draft, remembers GMs each having their own special mix of preferences. The reasoning, flawed though it may be, is that a smaller hand will have a harder time gripping the football, especially in cold weather. (For reference, the average adult male’s hand clocks in at a measly 7.6 inches, and anything under 9 inches is considered red flag territory when it comes to being an NFL quarterback.) Each time hand size comes up, so too does the preponderance of evidence suggesting there is absolutely no statistical correlation between hand size and NFL success. Kyler Murray (9.5 inches), Joe Burrow (9 inches), and Patrick Mahomes (9.25) all had their hands publicly shamed. It turned out, of course, that Allen was referring to the size of his throwing hand, something Kousaleos realized only when he saw the prospects go palm-to-palm to compare.Īllen had reason to be worried: hand size, measured diagonally from thumb to pinkie, is one of the many heavily scrutinized metrics that NFL teams use in evaluating draft prospects, quarterbacks especially. “I’m thinking, how could he be upset with eight and a half inches?” “I overheard Brandon say, ‘I only measured eight and a half inches.
Allen, Kousaleos remembers, was upset, and for a…striking reason. Both players had recently finished up their college football careers, and were now in Florida, at a training facility where Kousaleos worked, preparing for the upcoming NFL Draft.
In early 2016, a massage therapist named George Kousaleos found himself listening in on an unusual conversation between two standout football players: Brandon Allen, a quarterback from Arkansas, and Michael Thomas, a wide receiver from Ohio State.