This is rather disconcerting. Terrelle Pryor was taken by the Raiders on Monday in the NFL’s supplemental draft. It is now Thursday morning and Pryor is still not signed to a contract, and has yet to practice with the team.
With the new rookie wage scale, this sort of thing really should not happen. It especially shouldn’t happen with a third round pick. It definitely should never happen when that pick only has two weeks to practice with the team before serving a five week suspension.
Why the Raiders and Pryor haven’t been able to reach an agreement is truly beyond me. Normally, my first inclination would be to blame it on the fact that Pryor is being represented by Drew Rosenhaus, but again, with the new rookie wage scale, even Rosenhaus cannot be the obstacle to signing a contract that he previously was.
By all means, Pryor should have been signed by the end of the day Monday and should have been in camp by Tuesday morning. Instead, as of Wednesday evening, Pryor had yet to even travel to the west coast.
I know the situations really are not comparable, but Raiders fans cannot help but remember the long hold out that resulted the last time Oakland drafted a quarterback. Jamarcus Russell took months to sign, including a six week holdout, and after all of that, turned out to be the biggest draft bust in NFL history.
Again, I know these two situations are not the same, and the players are not the same people, but still, as a Raider fan, this makes me very uncomfortable.