Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Dennis Allen had to live though the most drawn out and dramatic quarterback controversy in NFL history during his one year in Denver as a defensive coordinator. Watching as the football world fell into the Tim Tebow trap could have contributed to Allen’s stubborn stance on Terrelle Pryor during his first season as a head coach in Oakland.

Not that Pryor is at all the distraction or incompetent mess Tebow is. TP6 can actually play the position that’s listed next to his name on the roster. Problem is Pryor just didn’t get the chance to show that until the last game of the lost season that was 2012. Perhaps Allen was just trying to avoid any distractions that might come from benching Mr. Unclutch aka Carson Palmer.

The line that was given during the season was that Pryor just wasn’t prepared. However Allen appeared more than prepared to keep losing with CP3 under center.

In a year filled with offensive lows the Raiders’ listless offense bottomed out near the end of the season as the Greg Knapp crap fest failed to find the end zone in consecutive weeks. Along the way Palmer was pounded in Carolina cutting short his miserable season.

When Matt Leinart looked very Tebow-esque in his only action of the season Allen had officially run out of excuses.

So Pryor got his first career start and despite some up and down moments the overall results were impressive.

An offense that couldn’t score if it found a drunken porn star knocking on its door after midnight came to life as Pryor had a hand in all three of Oakland’s TDs. For good measure he also led a late comeback that came up short during the season finale. That’s more than can be said for Palmer who racked up meaningless yards between the 20-yard-lines yet seemed to crumble in the red zone. Carson was also an absolute disaster in critical moments throwing costly interceptions every time the Raiders had an opportunity to win in close contests.

Pryor, on the other hand, revealed himself to be cool customer in the clutch and a valuable weapon in the red zone. Sure, it was just one game but it was eye opening considering how raw he was compared to how much NFL experience Palmer has.

Now with Palmer square in the crosshairs for a pay cut or pink slip the Terrelle Pryor movement has begun.

Reggie McKenzie publicly said he wanted to see what Pryor could do last season. Apparently he saw more than enough in one start to know the QB competition needed to be opened up during the 2013 training camp.

Of course there is still plenty that can and will happen between now and the start of Oakland’s camp. However there is no doubt Pryor looks to be bigger part of plan going forward. Raider Nation saw glimpses of the skill set that enamored Al Davis as visions of the Silver and Black possibly having their own Cam Newton (minus the diva/princess/bratty attitude), Colin Kaepernick or even RG3 danced through our heads.

Obviously it’s a stretch to compare Pryor to any of the aforementioned men who have proven much more. Of course they were given the chance to do so and to be fair were also much more prepared. Let’s not forget Pryor’s awkward route to the NFL and his rookie season that never was.

However there were flashes of brilliance in the preseason and some impressive plays made in his one regular season start. That might not be much but at this point it would be foolish to ignore the potential of Pryor over the flabby body of work put together by Palmer.

The Terrelle Pryor movement is here and what comes next could potentially be the beginning of a new era for the Oakland Raiders.

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I’m fully aware that this blog is has been among the leaders of burying Dennis Allen for many of the mistakes he made during his first year as an NFL head coach. But, in the end, I’ve got to call it the way I see it. So until the next season begins we’ve got months of second guessing coming off of another lost season in Oakland.

So today we’re taking Allen to task for his stubborn stance taken with Oakland’s offense last season.

To be sure Greg Knapp was a bad hire. However Knapp was only the messenger. It wasn’t like he put the bug in Allen’s ear that a zone-blocking scheme with West Coast principles was the way to go. Allen made that call. Not even a month in it was obvious that the offense wasn’t going to work. So instead of making changes Allen stayed the course watching helplessly as the team struggled to win just 4 games.

Another questionable call made by Allen was to keep sending Carson Palmer out onto the field when there was no reason to believe he gave the Raiders anymore of a chance at victory than Terrelle Pryor or even Matt Leinart for that matter.

As we all know it took Allen until the last week of the season to give Pryor his chance despite constant pleas from Reggie McKenzie expressing his desire to see what the young QB could do.

Now if all you do is look at the stats then Pryor’s 150 yards throwing while completing less than 50% of his throws looks rather unimpressive especially in a loss. However if you actually watched the game there is no arguing Pryor brought something to the team that had been lacking all year long.

In the two weeks before Pryor’s start Oakland failed to find the end zone. In San Diego Pryor accounted for all three of the Raiders’ scores throwing for two and running for one including leading Oakland back from a double digit deficit.

Pryor’s lone start combined with Oakland’s largely inept office has led to plenty of changes to the coaching staff and has McKenzie proclaiming that his young QB will have a chance to compete for the starting job in camp. That McKenzie would say that as opposed to Allen says at lot. It indicates McKenzie wanted to see more of Pryor during the season and that one start was enough of a sample size to know he can help this team in ways Palmer simply can’t.

Obviously we all make mistakes the first time we take to an endeavor. Allen is no different. The problem is his pedigree is defense yet he seems to have put far too many fingerprints all over the offense. Going forward it has become clear that Allen’s input on the offense will be lessened as evident by the hiring of Tony Sparano as the assistant head coach.

Once this season hit the midway point you could see where the Raiders were headed. Instead of giving Pryor meaningful reps, Allen kept going at it with Palmer. At no point did Allen even consider giving Pryor an expanded role. That was a mistake. The Oakland offense needed a spark and waiting until the last week to try something different was the wrong move to make. But that is one of many hindsight issues that will haunt Raider Nation in the coming months. In the coming year let’s hope we’re not having the same convo about another player buried on the bench that could have made some kind of a difference.

Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Dennis Allen didn’t dance around the topic. Reggie McKenzie spoke about it openly during this disappointing season.

The Oakland Raiders need leaders in the locker room.

As much as I’d love to keep throwing Greg Knapp under the blame bus even I know that without the right men in positions of leadership this franchise won’t be going anywhere other than back to the top 10 of the draft every year.

Rolando McClain was expected to be a future leader as a top 10 pick who played middle linebacker.

Carson Palmer was traded for with the expectation he’d be a franchise QB.

Richard Seymour was given a healthy contract with the hopes he’d bring a winning pedigree to Oakland.

On all accounts all three of the above mentioned have come up short in some degree. Obviously McClain being the worst offender of all. Palmer’s poor play in critical moments has overshadowed his team-first approach. As for Seymour, though a future Hall of Famer his fiery nature has gotten the best of him at times thus putting his personal agenda ahead of the team.

What the Raiders need is someone who plays a position where leadership is expected that will step up and be the vocal leader in the locker room as well.

While we await for that such person to emerge there is at least one brave soul willing to toss his name into that hat.

Terrelle Pryor has just one start in his two years in the NFL and while he still has plenty to work on he’s at least saying all the things you’d like to hear from a young QB.

Pryor’s lone start showed plenty of promise while also raising a few more questions. One thing that most no one questioned was his role as a leader when things got dicey during the season finale in San Diego.

When Mike Goodson got into it with Takeo Spikes it was Pryor that came rushing in to pull his running back out of the pack. That move alone showed that Pryor is a young man with his head in the game at all times. It also echoed what he said to Steve Corkran in his postseason sit down interview.

“I think this team needs leadership, whether it’s multiple guys leading or two or three guys. We need it. You look at all the top teams right now going to the playoffs. They have leaders, great leaders on offense and defense, maybe multiples. I think leadership is key because the guys are going to follow and get energy from a certain guy. You have to be able to lead and they have to believe that you’re always in the game.”

While Pryor made his share of mistakes against the Chargers he did earn some praise from the men in his huddle. Once such man was Khalif Barnes who made a point to find Pryor and give him some props on the plane ride home to Oakland.

“What made me feel good was when Khalif Barnes came up to me after the game on the plane and was like, ‘You did a great job. Got us in and out of the huddle. Sometimes you mumbled out the plays and you weren’t sure, but you jumped right back on it and were like, OK, this is the play. You had us upbeat. You were moving us, had us excited, had some energy.  He said, ‘I love that.’ And he said, ‘You were talking to defensive guys when they were about to go on the field, and their eyes snapped and they all paid attention to you. They were all alert when you were talking. As soon as you started talking, they were looking right at you. They didn’t even listen to the coaches, giving them details on the next series.’ That’s footsteps, and that’s a blessing that guys look up to me and have energy from me.”

Now keeping in step with Pryor’s approach he wouldn’t explicitly say whether or not he should get a chance to compete with Carson Palmer for the starting job next year. He also said how much he’ll miss Greg Knapp. All in all Pryor seems to always say the right things.

Whether or not he can develop into not only a quality NFL quarterback or a true leader remains to be seen. However we all saw a spark in Pryor that was largely missing from the Raiders this season. He deserves a chance and hopefully the coaching staff won’t be as stubborn next year as they were this past season.