Steelers Now
MOBILE, Ala. — Jalen Milroe might not know it yet, but the first day of the 2025 Senior Bowl on Monday did not go all that well for the Alabama NFL Draft quarterback prospect, and bad day might end up being a win for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The only things that happened on Monday were the players’ measurements being made official, and Milroe doing an interview with the assembled media. The interview went well, the measurements did not.
Milroe checked in at 6-foot-1 1/2 and 220 pounds, and has a 31 1/4-inch arm length and a 74 3/4-inch wingspan. There’s nothing wrong with any of those measurements.
No, it’s Milroe’s 8 3/4-inch hands that are going to cause some problems for the Crimson Tide passer.
No NFL starting quarterback in during the 2024 season had smaller than nine-inch hands, and that is considered the minimum acceptable size by many NFL Draft evaluators.
Former Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett skipped his hand measurements at the Senior Bowl, opting to try some stretching exercises to help compensate for what he called double jointedness in his hands. Pickett’s hands measured at 8 1/2 inches at the NFL Combine and 8 5/8 inches at his Pitt pro day.
Hand sizes of under nine inches are rare in the NFL, but the Steelers don’t seem to be one of the team’s that’s bothered by small-handed quarterbacks.
Not only did they draft Pickett in the first round in 2022, the only quarterback on the team’s current roster, former Miami Dolphins backup Skylar Thompson, also has 8 5/8-inch hands.
So the Steelers likely won’t be put off by Milroe’s small hands. It remains to be seen whether the rest of the NFL will be.
The Steelers will almost certainly be in the market for a quarterback in the 2025 NFL Draft, as president Art Rooney II said on Monday. Where they may be interested is another story. Milroe is currently the No. 24 overall player on the NFL Mock Draft Database consensus big board. The Steelers draft at No. 21 in the first round and No. 52 in the second round.
