Steelers HC Mike Tomlin: Kenny Pickett had 'no issues' with hand size at Pitt

Throughout the winter and spring months, former Pittsburgh Panthers quarterback Kenny Pickett routinely fielded questions about his varying hand-size measurements and about whether or not he'll be able to protect the football in harsh outdoor conditions while playing against pro defenses. 

To his credit, Pickett called his shot last month when he said he believed he'd be the first signal-caller selected in the 2022 NFL Draft. That proved to be true when the Pittsburgh Steelers kept him in the area via pick No. 20 overall. 

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin later indicated Pickett will have a chance to compete with Mitchell Trubisky and Mason Rudolph for the team's starting job this summer. Neither Tomlin nor outgoing general manager Kevin Colbert sounded even slightly concerned about the hand-size controversy when speaking about their new rookie on Wednesday. 

"I potentially was capable of buying into that if I didn’t watch him play college football in Pittsburgh and deal with the elements that come with playing in this environment," Tomlin explained during an appearance on "The Rich Eisen Show," per Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk. "So you can buy into the hand size thing or you can just look at how he performed in a variety of conditions, and we have those conditions in Pittsburgh. So there was very little speculation from our perspective about how he might handle the ball in inclement weather, wet days, etc. They played North Carolina on a Thursday night, I went to the game, it was raining pretty good that night and he had no issues." 

Colbert said on "Pro Football Talk PM" that he cared more about "the results" than about hand measurements.

"We watch Kenny play in our environment. ... Can he throw the football? Absolutely. Did he have an excessive fumble rate? No, he didn’t. We just judge it on how he played," Colbert remarked. 

As many have joked about over the past week, Pickett seemed quite comfortable playing home games in Pittsburgh throughout his college years: