The Oakland Raiders will reportedly release quarterback Terrelle Pryor on Monday after failed attempts to trade him and you have to wonder if the Ohio State product would now be willing to make a position change in order to make himself more marketable to other teams.
In the 15 games that he played in Oakland, Pryor completed 170 of 302 pass attempts for 1,953 yards with nine touchdowns to go along with 12 interceptions. While there might be a team or two willing to add Pryor as a camp arm to compete for a backup quarterback job, now is the perfect time for the 6-foot-5, 230-plus pound speedster to seriously consider converting to wide receiver.
At his 2011 Pro Day workout, Pryor reportedly ran a 4.36 40-yard dash time, which would have been the fourth-fastest at the combine that year. With that kind of size and speed, you would have to think he’d have a lot of teams willing to take him to training camp with them if he was willing to change positions.
As far as the Pittsburgh Steelers go, Pryor said last season that head coach Mike Tomlin had interest in selecting him in the supplemental draft, but the Jeannette, Pa., native thought it was in his best interest to get out of the area instead.
“Mike said, ‘Hey, I’ll draft you if you want to play here,’ ” Pryor said in an interview last season before the Raiders game against the Steelers. “But he gave me a story about when he was down in Tampa Bay about a quarterback (Shaun King) that was there, and he ended up being in the same hometown. It was just hard for him; he ended up cutting out because of all the distractions.”
The last thing the Steelers need right now is developmental quarterback with accuracy issues. They could, however, use a developmental wide receiver with size and speed, and that’s exactly how Pryor would best fit in Pittsburgh. There’s no guarantee that Pryor would be able to make the position change this far along in his career, but being as he has a ton of athleticism, if any player could pull it off, it would be him.
