Pryor catches on quickly as receiver
Switch from QB soon will pay off
The Washington Post
RICHMOND, Va. — Three years ago, Terrelle Pryor Sr. was a quarterback with tunnel vision. He could see no other career option. As he vied to make the Seattle Seahawks as a No. 3 quarterback, he squinted on a sunny Pacific Northwest day and refused to entertain the thought that, with his extraordinary size and athleticism, he could reinvent himself at another position.
“I don’t know how to catch,” Pryor told me in June 2014. “I don’t know how to run the ball as a running back. I’ve been a quarterback my whole life.”
Three years later, he’s an $8 million wide receiver and one of only 25 NFL players who amassed 1,000 receiving yards in 2016. And that was his first full year as a wideout.
Guess he knows how to catch now.
It’s a remarkable transformation that Pryor made look easy. How many times have we wondered whether a struggling quarterback with immense physical ability can make such a transition? Usually, the player doesn’t try, and the few that do perform like awkward quarterbacks unaccustomed to getting hit regularly and functioning outside of a pocket protected by very large security guards.
But Pryor isn’t a project. He’s the new No. 1 receiver in a Washington Redskins offense that averaged 403.4 yards per game in 2016, which ranked third in the NFL.
Easy? No. Pryor is just that gifted. It’s not just that he can run a 4.37 40-yard dash at 228 pounds, and that he still possesses the fluidity and leaping ability of a former Parade All-American high school basketball star. But he’s also an intelligent 28-year-old who has never lost his desire to learn and improve despite numerous hardships. To become a star, Pryor had to emerge from controversy, college suspension, pro quarterback struggles, losing, misinterpretation of his character and an identity epiphany.
This is where Pryor, who was one of the most hyped high school athletes at Jeannette and a Rose Bowl MVP at Ohio State, always thought he would be. But the way he handled his circuitous route added depth to his stardom.
“It’s very hard,” coach Jay Gruden said of Pryor’s transition to receiver. “Not many people have ever done it before. But he is a big, physical, great athlete. It helps to be 6-foot-5 and run a 4.3 40. I think, had he made this decision sooner in his career, I think he’d further along, but being that he just made it not too long ago, he is where he is. I mean, he’s still one of the top guys in the league, and he just started playing this. He’s a physical freak.”
In terms of athletic intelligence, he has shown that he’s a mental freak, too.
Kirk Cousins praises Pryor’s ability to think like a quarterback, even at his new position, which is helping the two develop chemistry. Because he played quarterback and studied like a quarterback for nearly all of his football life, Pryor can anticipate what Cousins is thinking.
“He’s picked up this system effortlessly,” Gruden said. “He asks good questions. He has great logic when he’s asking questions. He’s been outstanding, really. I just like the fact that he’s a very bright guy, understands coverages, understands where the ball should go and route concepts, which is very big. He’s a very smart receiver. Now, it’s just about polishing up the little things”
Gruden is quick to explain that Pryor is far from a finished product. Pryor caught 77 passes for 1,007 yards and four touchdowns in 2016, but, in free agency, teams were reluctant to offer him a lucrative, long-term contract, so he signed a oneyear deal with Washington. Pryor scoffs at the notion that he is raw, even though he didn’t become a full-time receiver until late in the 2015 season. He doesn’t think a developmental guy could have produced like he did last season in Cleveland despite the Browns’ merry-goround quarterback situation. But he can get better, and considering how hard he works, he will get better.
Pryor loves to discuss the effort required to pursue greatness. He regularly posts videos on social media to inspire younger athletes to work to achieve their goals. Monday, he mentioned his offseason workouts with Steelers All-Pro receiver Antonio Brown, marveling at how meticulous Brown is about his craft.
“From a receiver standpoint, I didn’t really know what the little things were until I started working out with Antonio Brown,” Pryor said. “When I talk about a freak mind — like a weird freak in terms of everything has to be perfect — watching Antonio work out, it just changed my whole mindset of how you’re supposed to be as a wideout.”
When Pryor talks about his improvement, he mentions wanting to have “better hips” and doing leg workouts and stretches late at night. He catches 400 footballs a day using the Jugs machine. In practice, he focuses on staying closer to the defender while running so that defensive backs can’t guess and redirect his routes.
After a long journey that includes playing for six teams the past six years, Pryor doesn’t want to regress. He has been a quick study at receiver, but it was an arduous process to become an NFL difference maker.
“It wasn’t easy,” Pryor said. “You guys see me as this big, 6-5, fast guy running out there, running past people. It may seem like it was easy, but I’ve spent ... I mean, countless hours. I’m talking about three, four hours a day with my trainer, Tim Cortazzo, not just running routes but also going indoors running around cones because I really didn’t know how to handle my body. I didn’t know how to adjust my body. Now I’m at the point where I can control my body. I know where I’m going. I know what I want to do to the defender. I know how to stare at the guy in his eyes and make him think that I’m doing something and then try to do something else.”