Terrelle Pryor is much better than 2017, and Russell Wilson knows it

Terrelle Pryor’s 2017 wasn’t as bad as it first appears

Time to get mathy, people. As Pryor had such vastly different opportunities in his last two years, let’s establish a better framework for comparison. Snap counts makes as much sense as any to me. 100 snap counts is a good base, so we’ll look at production per 100 plays.

Back we go to Cleveland. We divide Pryor’s 77 catches by 9. That equals 8.56 catches per 100 snaps. His 1007 yards converts to 111.9 per 100 snaps. For comparison, we’ll set the bar high and use Doug Baldwin. In 2017 Angry Doug was on the field for 853 plays, or 80 percent of all snaps. Nice that it’s close to Pryor, right? Baldwin’s 75 receptions equals 8.79 catches per 100. His 991 yards becomes 116.2 yards per 100 snaps. Better than Pryor’s number, plus he had twice as many touchdowns. Still, it shows the 100 snap count base is valid.

So let’s see if that dismal 2017 season in Washington was really that bad in the context of 378 plays. Terrelle Pryor had 20 catches which isn’t that great, right? Per 100 plays he made 5.29 catches. Pryor had 63.49 yards per 100 snaps. So his production did drop significantly last year, although to about 60 percent, not to 25 percent as the raw numbers suggest.

And now let’s take it one step further. Pryor had 16 catches in his first five games for an average of 6.01 receptions. He had 209 yards receiving, or 78.57 per 100 plays. He was only targeted eight time in his last four games. Bear in mind he was targeted 11 times in Washington’s first game.