The Browns have already kept one of their best potential free agents, linebacker Jamie Collins, from hitting the open market in March. While they now face the possibility of losing wide receiver Terrelle Pryor to free agency, it doesn’t sound as if the 27-year-old will have the opportunity to shop himself around the NFL. The Browns are “very likely” to place the estimated $15.826MM franchise tag on Pryor, CBS Sports’ Jason La Canfora reported earlier this week (Twitter link).
With the most cap space in the league, the Browns can easily afford to tag Pryor, though a multiyear deal would be preferable for the club. The same could be true for Pryor, who expressed a desire on multiple occasions during the season to stay in Cleveland for the long haul.
“I love to play for [Hue Jackson] and I enjoy playing for him this year and I’d love to play for him longer,” Pryor said in December. “But at the end of the day, it’s got to come down to what my agents think is right for me.”
Jackson, under whom Pryor broke out as he transitioned from quarterback to wideout, revealed Wednesday that the Browns are “working hard” to retain their free agents, including Pryor (via Nate Ulrich of Ohio.com).
On Pryor’s goal to remain a Brown, Jackson stated: “It means a lot. I hope all of our players that are there want to be there. That’s the kind of environment we try to create, but as he’s done, he’s got to do what he needs to do, and we hope it all works out. We’re working our tails off, I know that, to make things happen.”
If Pryor were to actually reach free agency, he’d be arguably the top pass catcher available, depending on whether the Bears are able to prevent Alshon Jeffery from hitting the market. The 6-foot-4, 223-pound Pryor is coming off a year in which he led the Browns in catches (77), targets (140), yards (1,007) and receiving touchdowns (four). Those quality numbers came in spite of a less-than-ideal quarterback situation in Cleveland, which shuffled through five different signal-callers in a one-win season. The Browns will undoubtedly look to upgrade under center this offseason, and it seems whichever QB they tab as their answer in the coming months will be able to count Pryor among his weapons for at least the 2017 campaign.
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$15mil tag for a guy that has played the position for 1 full season….insane…just sets the bar higher for established WR like Jeffrey and DeSean to get more than that and none of those guys are elite
Alshon is elite when healthy. Terell had a great season, and every metric points to the fact that it wasn’t a fluke.
Bad QB play to be sure, but that 77 catches on 140 targets gives me second thoughts. I’d love to have him play for my favorite team, but I don’t think you can approach signing him (aka how much are you gonna pay him) like it’ll be a slam dunk. Or I’ll say it like this; some rare guys you just have to worry about outbidding other teams because you don’t have to worry about him flopping once he shows up. I don’t know yet that Pryor is one of them.
I didn’t watch any Browns games, but I’d take that targets number with a grain of salt. As in, how many of those missed opportunities were drops and how many were just poor throws from the QB carousel?
Definitely not all 140 of those were catchable. If it turns out a stupidly high number of them (20? 40? More?) weren’t, then that would certainly change my mind a bit.
Pryor look like he can be a good No. 2 option for the Browns and Coleman can be the No. 1
The franchise tag makes the most sense. See what he does after another year. Not in love with a long term deal. Collins was a no brainier. Now that they have him locked up they can tag Pryor and see what happens like the team in Washington did with Cousins.