Yahoo! Sports and the SportsXchange's Len Pasquarelli included one interesting tidbit about Seahawks' new draft pick Russell Wilson in a recent column, revealing that some NFL teams didn't even have the 5'10 3/8" quarterback on their boards.
Wilson overcame a lot of odds in his college career, but his height had him off the draft boards of a few teams last month, and some of Carroll's colleagues in the NFL privately question using a third-round pick on a prospect who, competitiveness aside, was graded by some as just a career No. 3 guy.
This isn't super surprising, considering there aren't any sub-6'0 quarterbacks starting in the league, but obviously Seattle thinks Wilson can buck that trend. Some teams likely decided that, despite his obvious talents, the odds were just too stacked against Wilson for them to invest a valuable draft pick in that particular player.
In their defense of the pick, the Hawks have consistently noted Wilson's high release of the football ("that of a 6'2 QB"), long arms for his height, and very big hands. As Pasuarelli points out, "while Wilson was the shortest of the 19 quarterbacks at the combine (by nearly 1 1/2 inches), he had a hand measurement of 10 1/4 inches. That was a bigger hand than 14 of the combine quarterbacks. The ability to wrap his fingers around the ball, however, might not compensate for the height deficiency."
Certainly not, but it can't hurt - it does tend to help in the rain and wind though, and playing in Seattle he's liable to come across conditions like that. Short or not, there's buzz growing about Wilson in Seattle and it will be fun to see how he performs in the upcoming OTAs and Training Camp.
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