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By Will Gibson
Most everything went right for the Cleveland Browns in their win over the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday. They gained nearly 500 yards on offense, with the running game accounting for 230. Both Isaiah Crowell and Duke Johnson were effective, with Crowell’s two 50-plus yard runs particularly encouraging. Johnny Manziel completed over two-thirds of his passes and only made one clear mistake. A defense that entered the game with 17 sacks produced nine, a mark not reached by the Browns in over 20 years.
Many of these achievements have been rightly taken with a grain of salt as they came against a bad 49ers team. San Francisco has four wins on the season. Three of their wins have come at home and only the victory over the 8-5 Vikings looks like a truly quality win. Still, whether it’s against the Niners or East Carolina, a Browns win is something to be savored due to its rarity.
One of the few disappointments from the Browns win is that Terrelle Pryor did not catch a pass. This is hardly a shock given how recently Pryor returned to the team, but one would hope that he might at least see a jump ball in the red zone. He did play 16 snaps, per Dawgs by Nature’s Chris Pokorny — 15 to 20 was the pregame expectation — and looked to be active as a blocker in the run game. He was not targeted, thus a single 22-yard reception with the Oakland Raiders in 2012 remains his only NFL catch.
The Browns have just three games left, and it seems a good bet that Pryor will see a ball come his way before the season’s end. The team’s receiving corps has been decimated to the point that special teamer Marlon Moore and practice squad signee Darius Jennings are seeing meaningful playing time. Brian Hartline is the latest wideout to suffer injury, as he will miss the rest of the season with a broken collarbone. With Andrew Hawkins still out with a concussion and Dwayne Bowe continuing his legendarily well-compensated campaign of healthy scratches, Pryor should see the field more. (Taylor Gabriel may return from his own concussion next week.)
Browns head coach Mike Pettine and offensive coordinator John DeFilippo have both expressed excitement about Pryor’s size and versatility. They speak of him as being green in terms of knowing the offense and running all sorts of routes, but their comments from last Friday suggest that they are willing to put him out there as the season winds down.
“He trained primarily this week as the split end, the X receiver, but we can move him around some,” Pettine said Friday, per NEOMG’s Mary Kay Cabot. “There is some flexibility in the system. Flip (offensive coordinator John DeFilippo) does a nice job of putting guys where they need to be to run the routes. He’s not fully versed on the entire route tree so we’re not going to put him in that position where he has to run everything. The positive thing is the way he came back here. We can potentially work him in early and get him some playing time between now and the end of the year.”
“Obviously, Terrelle has a skillset that a lot of guys don’t have in that he is a big, fast receiver with good hands and with a different view of the game than a lot of receivers because he has played the quarterback position,” said DeFilippo. “He sees things a little bit differently. I am not saying it is better or worse than other receivers, but you see it differently when you have seen the whole thing. Again, Terrelle offers a skillset that we are looking forward to seeing.”
It is self-evident why Pryor’s size and potential have captured so many fans’ imagination. (His being a Buckeye surely doesn’t hurt, either.) The Browns’ next two games are on the road against two teams with outstanding defenses, Seattle and Kansas City, before finishing the season at Pittsburgh. Perhaps the Browns feel that Pryor still isn’t ready to take on significant receiving responsibilities. But with this season long since lost and few high-upside options in front of him, shouldn’t they try to figure out if he is worth keeping?
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