BEREA: Wide receiver Terrelle Pryor was destined to play for the Browns because he never fell in love with the Pittsburgh Steelers, not even as a kid growing up in their backyard.
Many of Pryor’s relatives and friends are die-hard Steelers fans, but he spent his youth rooting for legendary Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders instead.
“As a kid, you don’t really understand the significance of how people love the Steelers,” Pryor, a Jeannette, Pa., native, said Wednesday. “Even some places in Ohio there is Steelers stuff around, and it is a great organization. That is somewhere we want to be, and we want to be great and bring championships here, and I think we can, but this is the test, first test. We’ve got to beat them.
“My friends, they’re jerking me around a little bit about playing the Steelers. We’ve got a group chat. I’ve got about 15 people in it. They say, ‘Take it easy on them.’ ”
Pryor has no intention of fulfilling those requests when the Browns (0-10) host the Steelers (4-5) on Sunday.
“We’re not in the situation right now to be worried about a rivalry,” Pryor said. “We need to get a win. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing.
“We really need to win. You know? That’s something that’s very important to me. It’s important for me to get it done for coach Hue [Jackson] because I know he has people pulling on him and you hear talk about us going below .500 [in our all-time NFL record], and we don’t want that for this organization. This weekend, we can’t let that happen.”
Pryor predicted he’ll have a strong final six games partly because he finally feels good. He was not listed on the injury report Wednesday for the first time since he suffered a hamstring injury Oct. 16 against the Tennessee Titans.
“I am actually a little healthy right now,” Pryor said. “I had that three-day break [after Thursday night’s game against the Baltimore Ravens] and my legs feel pretty darn good, so I am really excited about that. So I will be able to be out there flying on Sunday.”
Pryor said he didn’t have any contact with the Steelers last season when he was a free agent, but he knows coach Mike Tomlin. After switching from quarterback to receiver last year, Pryor has 51 catches for 627 yards and four touchdowns.
“What I think he has down is remarkable but not that I am surprised by it,” Tomlin said during a conference call. “He being a Pittsburgh guy, I think I have known TP since he was in the 11th grade when I first got here some 10 years ago. He is a tremendous athlete. He is a dedicated competitor. That is shown through everything that he has done.”
Backing off
Jackson heaped pressure on rookie Cody Kessler last week by insisting it’s the quarterback’s job to lift his team to victory and urging him to stretch defenses vertically with much more deep passing. Then the coach pulled the third-round draft pick out of Thursday’s loss to the Ravens early in the third quarter with the Browns trailing by six points.
Now Jackson is changing his tune.
“Maybe we have been a little too harsh on him that way,” Jackson said. “He has done some things that have been improvements. He has made some jumps in some areas. There are some areas that he wants to make some jumps in. Quarterbacks, they do that from time to time.
“He is playing with a cast of players week in and week out that he is starting to get familiar with and they are getting familiar with him. That is just work in progress. At the same time, young quarterbacks kind of grow at different rates time to time. We want them to grow up as fast as we can, but sometimes guys have to go through their process to get there.”
Pryor vouched for Kessler.
“Today he did an awesome job [in practice],” Pryor said. “ ... I think Cody’s an awesome player, and I think he’s going to have a big game this week. I really do.
“We had a lot of energy today offensively, defensively, special teams, and I thought it was one of our best practices of the season.”
Although Pryor and rookie wide receiver Corey Coleman were visibly frustrated on the sideline Thursday, Pryor said it had nothing to do with Kessler.
“We want to win so dang bad that sometimes it gets the best of you,” he said.
Nearing return
Quarterback Robert Griffin III isn’t quite ready to launch his comeback attempt yet.
Griffin has been cleared for non-contact drills, but he’ll continue to remain sidelined during practices this week because he has yet to be designated to return from injured reserve, a Browns spokesman said Wednesday.
Once the Browns designate Griffin to return and let him practice, they’ll have 21 days to activate him from IR. They don’t want to open the three-week window until they think he’ll be cleared to play within the period. If the 21 days were to pass without him being activated, he would be forced to remain idle for the remainder of the season.
“We are just being very cautious and making sure that everything is done correctly so when he does go out there that he can stay out there,” Jackson said.
The coach added he expects Griffin to return to practice “soon.” Griffin rode a stationary bike beside the field during Wednesday’s session.
On Monday, Browns head of football operations Sashi Brown revealed Griffin is on pace to return this year. He has missed the past nine games after suffering a fractured coracoid bone in his left shoulder Sept. 11 in the regular-season opener.
My bad
Running back Isaiah Crowell ranked second in the NFL in rushing yards (394) and first in yards per carry (6.5) through four games, but his production has plummeted since. In the past six games, Crowell has only 157 rushing yards and is averaging just 2.6 yards per carry.
“My fault,” Jackson said. “I take responsibility for that when it comes to Crowell. This guy is a really, really good player, and we have not rushed the ball as well over several weeks now, and that is disappointing. I have to do a better job. I have to put him in better situations because he is a very, very talented player.”
Extra points
• In the end zones on the practice fields, this message is painted: “FINISH 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1.” Jackson said, “To make winning a reality, that is what you have to do. You have to finish games, and we are going to count this thing down. There are six of them left. ... We are going to try to finish this season the right way because we need to.”
• Jackson said he didn’t address his team about the results of the presidential election. “I am not going into the politics thing,” he said. “I have enough problems of my own, so I’m not going to get caught up in that one.”
• Linebacker Chris Kirksey leads the NFL with 94 tackles. “He has had a tremendous season,” Jackson said. “... He has accepted the challenge of playing extremely physical and tough.”
•Former Browns linebacker Clay Matthews is among the 26 semifinalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2017, the hall announced Wednesday.