An Investigation Into Why NFL Quarterback Alex Smith Is Terrible At Dodgeball

The NFL introduced the skills competition back to Pro Bowl week and decided to change things up from the old days when Larry Allen would just bench press 225 pounds a million times by the beach.

This year, the Pro Bowlers attempted to catch balls dropped by drones and the AFC and NFC battled in a game of dodgeball. You would expect the quarterbacks to be good at dodgeball, or at least good at the throwing part, but Alex Smith proved that theory very wrong.

Smith tried to throw a dodgeball and it went very poorly.

What is that?! Not only does he throw the ol’ Tim Tebow slant route (a ball bouncing four feet short into the ground) he then compounds his terrible dodgeball playing by getting in the way of his teammate trying to dodge a ball and pushes him into it for an elimination.

To figure out why Alex Smith can’t throw a dodgeball we must go all the way back to his draft evaluations when teams were terrified that he had little Trump-like hands. There was a great deal of discussion going into the draft about how those small hands (which really aren’t that small at 9 and 3/8 inches) would affect his ability to throw the football, especially in cold weather.

It hasn’t hindered him to this point on the gridiron, but with the spherical foam dodgeball, maybe those smaller hands have become his Achilles’ Heel. Having smaller hands would make it hard to grip the dodgeball, forcing him to throw the ball like a soccer goalie trying to hit a winger.

He also might just not want to try and fling a light, foam ball around and potentially tweak his elbow or shoulder. Either way, the moral of this story is don’t draft Alex Smith to your dodgeball team.

(h/t SI Extra Mustard)