Terrelle Pryor impressed many experts and viewers with his performance in the Raiders 21-17 loss to the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday. His running ability along with his surprising poise and comfort in the pocket nearly led the Raiders to an upset victory.
Pryor has been working hard all offseason and he studies a lot of tape of different quarterbacks. Among the ones who he studies and emulates the most are Tom Brady, Michael Vick, and Colin Kaepernick. As he told the San Jose Mercury News:
“She said you have a basket, and if you see something about Tom Brady you like, put it in the basket. You see Michael Vick, (Colin) Kaepernick, Robert Griffin III, keep putting things in the basket. Eventually you keep adding what they’re great at, emulate it, and add it to your skill set, and you’re only going to get better.”
The ‘She’ he refers to is Julie Posey, mother of Pryor’s Ohio State teammate DeVier Posey, whom he refers to as his aunt. Pryor took her advice and ran with it as he has been picking up bits and pieces from these quarterbacks including a one-step drop from Brady, in hopes of improving his accuracy, and a ball fake from Kaepernick, to improve his selling ability on play action passes.
Pryor is very young and the fact that he is able to study and implement different pieces from top quarterbacks says a lot to his dedication to the game. While not quite seasoned enough yet, he has shown the ability to improve and represents the Raiders’ best option at quarterback by far.
With injuries all over the offensive line, it will be up to Pryor to make plays happen for the time being and as long as he is able to keep adding different skills to his basket, I wouldn’t put it past him.
