INDIANAPOLIS — Size apparently matters.
In the case of quarterback prospects at the NFL Scouting Combine, hand size suddenly matters a whole lot this year.
After some scouts theorized that top prospect Jared Goff’s fumbling problem was because of his 9-inch hands and new Browns coach Hue Jackson said he values a big-handed quarterback because of bad weather in the AFC North, sizing up passing hands has become all the rage.
Arkansas prospect Brandon Allen even went to a “hand masseuse” to stretch out his small hands, and it reportedly worked — Allen’s hands measured 8 ⁷/₈ inches here after measuring 8 ¹/₂ inches at the Senior Bowl.
Broncos president John Elway, once a pretty good quarterback himself, said he recently measured his own hands at 10 ¹/₈ inches.
“Hand size is important,” Elway said Thursday. “As a player you never look at it, as a GM, you always look at it.”
The NFL is debating changes to the scouting combine but continues to run into interference from teams that like the format as is.
Some within the league would like to have players put on pads and compete against each other in drills, but that is considered unlikely because top prospects would balk at the possibility of an injury before the draft.
“You don’t want to get away from the traditional drills that we’ve done, because you have so much information stored over the years for a comparison,” Steelers GM Kevin Colbert said this week. “But, you don’t want to grow stale either. We’re in a review process.”
Despite the formation of a blue-ribbon panel of former coaches, players and executives to debate the issue, the NFL reportedly plans no changes to its controversial catch rule.
“Nothing has been finalized, but my sense is that there will be no change to the rule or tweak of the language,” NFL director of officiating Dean Blandino told the NFL Network on Thursday. “We will certainly continue to use video to educate in this area.”
The Jaguars trounced the field on the list of unused 2015 salary-cap space that NFL teams will carry over to this season with a whopping $32.7 million.
The Giants will carry more than $11.1 million, while the Jets have $2.4 million in 2015 space to use this fall.
The salary cap is expected to be roughly $156 million per team in 2016, which would be an increase of $13 million over last year.