In case you were not listening, the purpose of yesterday's press conference for former Ohio State Buckeyes quarterback Terrelle Pryor was to apologize and to declare himself ready to enter the NFL's Supplemental Draft. His declaration should not come as much of a shock, but now it is time for teams to decide if Pryor is the type of player worth using a future draft pick on. Teams might not automatically discount Pryor and let him go undrafted; if they felt he was a fifth-round type of player back in April, then they should pick him at the appropriate time in the supplemental draft.
Pryor has a few people that are touting his abilities to the extreme though. If you head over to Mocking the Draft, they have several quotes from agent Drew Rosenhaus during the conference. Rosenhaus' job is to promote his new client as hard as he can, and that is exactly what he is doing as he declared him worthy of a first-round selection and likened his abilities to being better than those of the first overall pick of the draft, Cameron Newton:
"This league needs quarterbacks," Rosenhaus said. "Are you kidding me? Middle round for this guy? You talk about Cam Newton being the first pick of the draft and he deserves it? Let me tell you what, I'll make all the comparisons all day long: [Pryor] is 31-4 at Ohio State. He has 8,000 total yards in three years. He holds 59 touchdowns -- a record at Ohio State. This is Big 10 football that he has dominated."
Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco had a workout with Pryor yesterday too and offered some praise too. Ochocinco tweeted, "With the right coaching after what I saw today with my own eyes he can be a great QB."
It is easy for me to say that I don't think the Browns should take a flier on Pryor. I'm not a huge college football fan so I do not have significant animosity toward Pryor; I'm just content with the Browns trying out Colt McCoy as "the guy" without their being a controversy. That might not stop Tom Heckert and company though -- the Browns will probably need a third-string developmental quarterback, and while that would be an undersell of what Rosenhaus is promoting, it could be the only thing teams have in mind for Pryor in year one.