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Terrelle Pryor has Déjà vu in rough first day of training camp

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Oakland Raiders quarterback Terrelle Pryor (6) at organized team activities at the Raiders practice facility.
Oakland Raiders quarterback Terrelle Pryor (6) at organized team activities at the Raiders practice facility.

Well, technically this is Terrelle Pryor's second day of training camp. He came in last season on the final day of training camp after the team grabbed him in the third round of the compensatory draft. On his single day of training camp in 2011, he struggled mightily. His return to the scene of the crime on the first day of 2012 camp was not much better.

On that fateful single training camp day of 2011, he had great difficulty in just the center quarterback exchange. When he first got into team drills, he fumbled more snaps than not. On this day, his very first snap hit the turf. Perhaps there were some flashbacks happening on that one.

We have had all of OTA's and minicamps to watch Pryor this offseason. And at times he has looked decent, albeit unremarkable. His passes flutter and he seems to guide them into the receiver as if he is scared if he puts anything behind it, it will go wild. He did much of that today as well.

The times he throws long, he is often off target. His toughest throws are mid to long range hitting a target on a crossing route. Today, he had one of those and he threw it well behind his target receiver, Juron Criner. He was just lucky there wasn't a cornerback in tow to grab an easy interception.

He did settle down and complete a few passes. Although he hasn't gotten the timing completely down. While Palmer is a master of throwing the ball before the receiver has even turned around, Pryor must wait until the receiver makes his break and turns and shows himself before he releases the ball. And even then, it is a stationary target which is not where he has his primary issue.

Practice ended worse than it started for Pryor. On the final play of the day, with the team lined up with their backs against their own goal line, he rolled out left on an attempted screen pass. He was in the end zone and stumbled. While stumbling, he attempted a shovel pass to... someone... and it ended up right in the hands of rookie defensive lineman Christo Bilukidi who hauled it in and ran it in for a touchdown.

"I just read it." said Bilukidi. "It seemed like everything that coach was teaching us, how to read plays, how to read the offense, saw it was a screen, I just backed up and then just had to make a play."

In last season's camp under Hue Jackson, he would have added another play trying to send Pryor out of practice feeling a little better about himself. But under the new defensive minded Dennis Allen, the thought didn't cross his mind. That was it. Practice over. And as an added bonus, one of the defenders got to leave on a high note.

That is a good lesson for Pryor. Games and even seasons end on plays like that. This is just practice and he is lucky the sting will last just one night instead of a week or an entire offseason. Hue may feel the need to baby his quarterbacks but Allen is not one to pamper.

After practice, Allen was asked what he expects from Pryor.

"I have expectations of him to develop as a quarterback on a daily basis." Said Allen. "I'm not setting anything as far as where I want to see him on the depth chart or how many passes or anything like that, I just want to see him get better every day. That's what he's come out here and tried to do, and I think if he continues to do that, at the end of the day he's going to be all right."

Pryor has said his goal is to get "one percent" better every day in practice. While I am not a mathematician, I'll just say he has a good percentage to go yet.