hey so remember terrelle pryor?

Profootballtalk had a really good interview with Terrelle Pryor that I thought opened with a pretty good line. To paraphrase, "What if this years NFL draft had a 6'6 230 pound QB who ran a 4.32 40, was the greatest quarterback to come out of Pennsyvlania and was a Rose Bowl MVP?"




I remember going to school at OSU during those couple weeks when Pryor was making his decision and it was insane. People forget about Pryor's own, "The Decision" because Ohio was the beneficiary of someone's huge public shitshow but that was arguably just as big as Lebron's thing at the time.

The record books have largely been wiped clean, thanks to Tattoogate, but Pryor's contributions to OSU athletics including a Rose Bowl win over Oregon (coach gone) and a Sugar Bowl win over Arkansas (coach gone) were pretty big and helped improve the Big 10's image with regards to the SEC which were in the basement at the time.

The first thing I noticed about the interview was that Pryor seems to have matured a lot since he left college. He consistently show a humble side of him that I never knew existed. When asked if he thought he could beat out Carson Palmer for the starting job in Oakland, Terrelle answered that he didn't want to make any comparisons between himself and Palmer:

"I don't really wanna give comparisons or anything like that because Carson (Palmer) does a great job of what he does, and I can also play too and do some things well, too,"

"So I can't down-talk him because he's a great QB to me and I just wanna stay on my side of seeing what I have to do to get better every single day and that's where I'm at right now." 

The interview continued with Pryor listing off the things he thinks he excels at which pretty much anyone should be able to guess: his run game, his ability to trick out the defense, and his speed. I do have to disagree with one thing he said which is his arm strength. I don't recall Pryor ever being known for that, at least in the way Andrew Luck or even Troy Smith was known for it.

More importantly are the things he said he needs work on. Pryor said he's hired three quarterback coaches one of which being George Whitfield, presumably the same Whitfield who is working with Braxton Miller on his own game. That could be really cool  as Whitfield's disciples includes some really huge names like Luck, Newton, and even Johnny Football.

Pryor also talked about some of the challenges he's faces over the years especially his father and mentor dying on the... Same... Day... Last July...

I won't go there.

But that was no doubt a difficult challenge. Pryor said that his quarterback coach, Craig Austin, told him hard times bring leaders and apparently Pryor believes in that.

Pryor did boast a little about himself. When asked who would win in a sprint contest featuring some of the speediest quarterbacks in the game right now he said he would come in second only to Michael Vick.

What I took away most from this interview is that Terrelle Pryor has grown up a lot since the days of, "Everybody kills people." (Hugely ironic that this was in defense of Vick.) He seemed like someone who genuinely wants to get better and compete for a starting job.

Despite everything with Tattoogate I hope he succeeds.