MOBILE, Ala. — Kenny Pickett led the Panthers to their first ACC championship. He finished third in the Heisman Trophy voting and is the top quarterback in the 2022 draft entering the evaluation phase, which begins at this week's Senior Bowl.
And yet one of the first questions he was asked Tuesday morning before the first practice of the week was about his hand size.
Get used to it. It's going to be a topic for the coming weeks and months.
NFL teams want to know everything about every prospect before they invest valuable draft picks and resources, and hand size is an important detail for quarterback. Players with bigger hands can naturally throw the ball with more velocity, and they're not as prone to fumbling.
Pickett's hands are rumored to be around 8 inches, which is a historically small size for a quarterback, especially one expected to be selected in the first round of the draft. Two years ago, Joe Burrow's hand size was questioned during this process, and his hand measured at 9 inches.
"The good news is I played in Pittsburgh," Pickett said. "Anyone who knows Pittsburgh knows it isn't the best place to play in October and November. I have experience playing in tough weather."
Pickett declined to have his hand measured on Monday when his other measurements were taken here, but he will have it measured a month from now at the NFL combine in Indianapolis. In the meantime, Pickett said he will be doing stretching exercises to ensure there is an accurate measurement.
And you thought the 40-yard dash was important?
The good news for Pickett is he's being compared to Burrow in other areas, too. The No. 1 overall pick by the Bengals in the 2020 draft, Burrow will be playing in the Super Bowl against the Los Angeles Rams next week after leading the Bengals from worst to first in the AFC North this season.
Like Burrow, Pickett came out of nowhere to dominate during his senior season. Last year around this time, Pickett announced he was returning to Pitt after receiving feedback from NFL personnel that he wouldn't be drafted in the top three rounds.
"Kenny has himself in a great position in this draft process right now," Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy said Tuesday morning. "He is going to crush this process. He has a really cool way about him. He kind of reminds me of Burrow. When I got to know Joe through this process, guys just gravitated to him. He's a leader. It comes easy to him."
Being compared to Burrow will be something that follows Pickett throughout the pre-draft process, but he didn't seem to mind Nagy noting their similarities. Pickett was roommates with Burrow at the Manning Passing Academy a few years back. Burrow and Pickett caught up late last fall when they were in the midst of their special seasons.
"That's a hell of a comparison," Pickett said. "I'm going to have to have Jim introduce me wherever I go. He's a heck of a player at the college level and now what he's doing in the NFL. ... He's a great guy, great role model to have going into the NFL."
The Steelers are here this week to look at all of the top senior prospects, and they will be paying close attention to the quarterbacks following Ben Roethlisberger's retirement last week.
Roethlisberger's first quarterbacks coach in the NFL was Mark Whipple, who coached Pickett the past three seasons when he was the offensive coordinator at Pitt.
Pickett said it has been "kind of a dream" to get drafted by the Steelers.
"A lot of things he taught Ben, he was teaching me these past three seasons at Pitt," Pickett said. "The possibility of getting drafted there, it's unbelievable. Pittsburgh is my second home. It's kind of a dream once I got recruited to Pitt. We'll see what happens."
