Terrelle Pryor spoke passionately about Goodson, Spikes scuffle

The Raiders were down 10-0 heading into the second quarter and were finally moving the ball for the first time in the game. Pryor then threw a pass to Rod Streater in the endzone and the Chargers were called for pass interference. It should have resulted in a first and goal at the one yard line but Takeo Spikes and Mike Goodson began scuffling before the play was over.

At that moment, Terrelle Pryor showed a great deal of leadership. It was the kind of leadership that didn't go unnoticed by Dennis Allen.

"I thought he did a nice job trying to get Goody out of there," said Allen. "He understood what the situation was and we can't hurt our team there."

After that, I told Pryor that his head coach was impressed by what he did in that situation. It was clear he had some heated words for Goodson after pulling him out of the scrum. I asked Pryor what he told Mike Goodson at that moment. Pryor had been literally hanging his head throughout the interview and upon me asking him what he told Goodson, he lifted his head for the first time and spoke with passion about the situation.

"Let's get this right, I LOVE Mike Goodson," Pryor emphasized. "That's my guy. That's one of my very good friends, and I know I slammed him but you can't do that. We're about to score. How hard it is, me just being in the stance watching Carson, it's very hard to get down there and score in the NFL and when we're down there, what if we get a 15 yard penalty? We're screwed. And I just said ‘Mike, you can't do that' and he said ‘What do you expect me to do, he hit me?' and was like ‘you gotta be the bigger man. How many times have we been... last year we had over 160 penalties, I don't know how many yards, maybe 1000 football fields. We have to be the bigger guy when scuffles happen like that and I told him, you can't do that. I got caught up and I gotta apologize for throwing him like that. It's just me being a leader and just trying to get him off. I don't think I handled it the right way but I'm a feisty guy."

In the end, Goodson and Spikes were both ejected and the offsetting penalties negated the potential first and goal off the pass interference. Pryor would make good on it though as he threw a touchdown pass two plays later.

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