Does Hand Size Really Matter For Quarterbacks?

April 23, 2020

Justin Carter debunks the myth that hand size actually matters for NFL quarterbacks after Joe Burrow's 9-inch measurement at the 2020 NFL Draft Combine by analyzing historical data for QBs.

So, Joe Burrow has small hands. Nine inches to be exact.

It's been the talk of Twitter for a few days. Bud Light got involved in the jokes by asking Burrow to be the spokesman for their new tinier bottles. Pundits are convinced Burrow is going to be an NFL bust because of his hand size. He won't be able to handle the rough and tumble play of the AFC North, as Baltimore and Pittsburgh will feast on him and he'll fumble football after football in December.

But, like...does it matter? Like, does Burrow's hand size really matter? Let's figure it out.

Size Matters, Right?

When you think of the ideal NFL quarterback, you probably think about this guy:

Some huge, strong, real hands that can grip a football really well. This guy should be able to throw for 5,000 yards and never fumble and be the next NFL legend. Right?

Well, let's slow down some and look at some data before we conclude that Joe Burrow is a bust and Charlie Kelly's creepy uncle from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia would win the next 10 MVP awards.

I went over to Mock Draftable, one of the Internet's best places to find combine data, and sorted all the quarterbacks from the 2010 to the 2016 NFL Drafts -- wanted there to be a good, multi-year sample size -- by hand size.

Now, there are over 100 names on that list, so to narrow things down even more, I decided to look only at the quarterbacks who have made at least 16 starts, because 1) sample size and 2) comparing Joe Burrow's small hands to Joel Stave's large hands doesn't really make sense when you consider that Burrow will be selected to be a franchise QB and a lot of guys were selected to maybe make a team.

That got us down to a more manageable 33 players who were drafted and have made at least 16 starts. Of those players, Burrow's nine-inch hands would tie him for smallest hands with Ryan Tannehill and Jared Goff.

Here are all of those hand sizes charted out:

On one hand, we do see that Burrow brings up the rear among these players, but on the other hand, he's bringing up the rear with two arguably above-average NFL starters in Tannehill and Goff, while E.J. Manuel has large hands and is...E.J. Manuel.

Digging Deeper

Let's try to make sense of this data and if it ultimately means anything via a series of other charts involving hand size and some quarterback stat. Note: I've removed the names from these charts, because I want to get an idea of possible correlations without bringing in the added context of knowing who these players are.

Let's start with a comparison of hand size and a player's career adjusted net yards per attempt. This number factors in passing yards, passing touchdowns, interceptions, sacks, and lost sack yardage:

So, can we draw any conclusions from these numbers? Aside from maybe getting really, really #SmallSampleSize and saying that having hands of 10.5 inches or larger is good, the rest of the numbers here look like a random scattering of numbers. The highest ANY/A belongs to one of the quarterbacks with the smallest hands. The two quarterbacks who tie with Burrow for smallest hands include one of the higher scores and one that's solidly in the middle. I don't look at this chart and really see anything meaningful about hand size and this particular stat, which has become one of those numbers that analytics people really enjoy using to talk about a player's passing ability.

By the way, none of these charts include players drafted over the last three years but among notable recent quarterback picks, Josh Allen is the only quarterback with a 10'' hand, Drew Lock's is the same size as Burrow's, and Patrick Mahomes's hand is just a quarter-inch larger than Burrow's.

Anyway, maybe there's not much of a link between hand size and the ability to throw a football, but maybe that other issue -- fumbles! -- will rear its head.

Let's Keep Trying

Sorting these players by total fumbles wouldn't really work, so I'll be sorting them by fumbles per start, which seems like a fair way of leveling the field. Let's see if we can detect any connection between hand size and fumbling. Yes, this doesn't account for situations where a player came in off the bench and fumbled, but look, we all have to make tough decisions.

Anyway, here's the per game fumbles charted against hand size:

Again, the numbers are all over the place. I can squint my way into seeing a tiny correlation here, but it's not really enough for me to make a sweeping generalization about hand size and fumbles. Most quarterbacks -- regardless of hand size -- seem to fumble somewhere between 0.5 and 0.75 times per game, and only one quarterback with a sub-9.5 hand size fell below that mark, and only one with an over 10-inch hand size went above that mark, so again we're seeing this whole idea about "Burrow won't be able to hold onto the football" fall apart based on the data we have available.

Conclusion

These two charts aren't enough to come to some firm conclusion on the issue, and there are tons of other things we could chart to try to discover a correlation, but even if we found that, for example, hand size and pick-sixes were correlated -- and again, this is hypothetical and I'm not saying they are -- we couldn't just scream "there's the proof!" You have to provide evidence to say one thing causes another; otherwise, you're dealing with logical fallacy territory. But for our purposes here, we aren't seeing any strong relationship between these stats and the hand size of the quarterback, and I'm not interested in going on a wild goose chase just to find reason to hate on Joe Burrow.

Look, y'all -- there are already valid reasons to doubt Burrow! His breakout age ranks in the 23rd percentile. He had one real year of production at the college level. How sustainable is 2019 Joe Burrow? Will Cincinnati be the best landing spot for him, or will he become Andy Dalton 2.0?

Worry about those things. But we just don't have enough recent data to suggest that hand size is something that'll significantly hurt Burrow's ability to succeed in the NFL. Don't let the fact that Jimmy Clausen had the same hand size as Joe Burrow make you think Burrow will be a bust because there are so many other factors that contributed far more to a guy like Clausen busting.

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