Kenny Pickett is on his third team in two years. The former first-round pick out of Pitt was deemed the Steelers ideal Ben Roethlisberger replacement, but that turned out to be an unfair expectation. Pickett was selected in the first round back in 2022, but had a third-round grade. Now with Cleveland in perhaps his last, best chance to earn a starting gig, even the Browns are playing into the narrative.
Pickett will compete against Joe Flacco for the starting quarterback job, and as Browns minicamp gets underway, Cleveland accidentally sent a subtle message to their former rival turned QB candidate. The Browns social media team had hoped, surely, to motivate the quarterbacks and their fanbase by hyping up the battle between Pickett and Flacco. Instead, they created a meme.
The responses are...a lot. For those unfamiliar with Pickett's pre-draft process, he had considerably smaller hands than you average professional quarterback. It likely doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things – especially in comparison to Pickett's ability to read a defense and make decisions on the fly – but it was definitely a talking point.
Kenny Pickett's hand size comes back to haunt him with Browns
Pickett's hands measured in at 8.5 inches, which at the time was smaller than any starting quarterback in the NFL. He initially did not receive measurements at the Senior Bowl, which sparked some concern, but gave in come the NFL Combine. Again, the Steelers didn't care about any of this.
"The reason I didn't measure at the Senior Bowl was just to have those extra couple weeks, just kind of a commonsense thing, to have more time working the exercises," Pickett said in Indianapolis. "Whatever it measures, it measures, I'm sure that won't be the end of it, but that will be the last measurement I'm sure I'll take of it."
Pickett was right – that was not the end of it. Even on Thursday, three years after the Combine, Pickett was trolled on social media.
There were plenty more where that came from. For the record, Flacco's hands are 9.63 inches. Compared to other starting quarterbacks, Flacco's hands are not exceptionally large, but in this case they received the benefit of a side-by-side photograph with Pickett.
The best Browns quarterback will win the competition at the end of the day. Hand size is the least of Cleveland's concerns moving forward, especially as they prepare for what will likely be a full season without Deshaun Watson.