Raiders to face off with former QB Terrelle Pryor

Young Raider fans may not remember this, but there was once a time when former Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor was considered the Raiders’ quarterback of the future. Pryor was selected by Oakland in the supplemental draft of 2011, and was the last draft pick ever made by Al Davis before his death.

Pryor’s time with Oakland ran its course and the Raiders cut him loose. He landed with several teams and tried his hand at quarterback, which didn’t work out for him. Finally, he signed with the Cleveland Browns in 2015 and changed positions to wide receiver. He quickly became one of the NFL’s more potent weapons at that position before signing with the Washington Indigenous Persons this offseason. As the Raiders next opponent, he is someone Jack Del Rio must be wary of.

“When I last studied him he was a quarterback,” said Del Rio of his days as Defensive Coordinator in Denver. “Obviously, a tremendous athlete. He’s done a great job transitioning. Not a lot of people are able to do that. He’s gone from an athletic quarterback that could take off and run sometimes with a powerful arm and turned himself into a dynamic threat as a wide receiver. Big, fast, physical and his skill level is getting better and better each year.”

Raiders QB Derek Carr has also been impressed with Pryor’s ability to switch from QB to wideout at the NFL level.

“Unbelievable, right?,” said Carr. “It’s something that people see and they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s really cool.’ But they don’t understand how hard that is, like to play quarterback your whole life, even in the NFL, make it as an NFL quarterback, and now we’re going to move you to receiver and be successful. And not only that, he did it with multiple quarterbacks last year, which is ridiculous. I think that he deserves a lot more credit than he just gets.”

So it seems as though the Raiders are giving Terrelle Pryor a ton of credit for being able to change his position and remake himself into a truly dynamic player. Pryor, for his part, sees his matchup with the team that drafted him as a stepping stone to greater things:

We should expect that sort of confidence in a young man like Pryor who was always confident and gave good effort to the Raiders, but if he thinks providing bulletin board material to the likes of Karl Joseph and Sean Smith before their meeting on Sunday Night Football is a good idea, he may come to regret his decision. The Raiders are just too good to be throwing around quotes like this.