Terrelle Pryor Wide Receiver Experiment Worth a Shot for Talent-Barren Browns

To say the Cleveland Browns are lacking in the wide receiver department is an understatement. The team's top wide receiver in 2015, Dwayne Bowe, caught all of zero touchdown passes last year for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Or you could say the team's top wide receiver is Josh Gordon, who is suspended for at least the entire 2015 season after failing another drug test. Either way, the Cleveland pass-catchers are a hot mess.

Well, they say desperate times call for desperate measures, and the Browns are trying to get creative in an effort to extinguish their Dumpster fire at wideout.

As Mike Garafolo of Fox Sports reported, the Browns claimed Terrelle Pryor off waivers Monday:

Yes, Terrelle Pryor—the quarterback.

Pryor had most recently spent time with the Cincinnati Bengals in OTAs, working as a quarterback. But after Pryor long resisted the notion of a position switch in an effort to revive his lagging NFL fortunes, his agent indicated to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk after his release that he is now open to the idea.

Necessity is the mother of invention, after all. And that necessity extends to both player and team in Cleveland.

Category	Player	Stat
Receptions	Andrew Hawkins	63
Receiving Yards	Andrew Hawkins	824
Yards Per Catch	Jordan Cameron*	17.7
Touchdowns	Travis Benjamin	3

Yes, Andrew Hawkins, who led the Browns in receptions and yardage last year, is back with the team in 2015. But Hawkins is what he is—an undersized (5'7", 180 pounds) option best suited to duties in the slot.

Outside of Hawkins and Bowe, things get ugly quickly. Miles Austin, who finished second on the team with 47 receptions last year, is in Philadelphia now. Travis Benjamin paced the Browns in touchdown catches last year...with three.

In addition to Bowe, the Browns added veteran Brian Hartline in free agency, but if you saw Hartline plod his way to 39 catches for 474 yards in Miami last year, you know the only thing he's taking the top off is a jar of Miracle Whip.

Yes, the Browns have all sorts of problems at the quarterback position, but even the love child of Joe Montana and Dan Marino could only do so much with that train wreck of a group.

At first glance, it isn't hard to see why the Browns would be willing to roll the dice on trying Pryor on the receiving end of passes rather than the throwing one.

At 6'4" and 233 pounds, Pryor has the size that's lacking in the Cleveland receiving corps. In fact, while a position switch has long been the subject of speculation where Pryor is concerned, tight end was usually seen as the landing spot.

Then there's Pryor's speed. According to NFL Network's Albert Breer, the fifth-year pro ran a 4.38-second 40-yard dash at his personal pro day in 2011, and it wasn't long ago when he showed the Pittsburgh Steelers his speed did indeed translate to the NFL level:

However, before anyone starts envisioning Pryor sailing down the sidelines in an orange hat, there are some huge obstacles standing between him and a second NFL act at wideout.

The first is a matter Pryor himself brought up last year while trying out for the Seattle Seahawks.

"I don't know how to catch. I don't know how to run the ball as a running back," Pryor told Jerry Brewer of the Seattle Times. "I've been a quarterback my whole life."

In addition to the matter of catching the ball (which is sort of a big deal for receivers), there's the not-so-insignificant matter of playing football from a completely different perspective. There are more than a few pass-catchers whose NFL careers never got off the ground because they were unable to master route trees—unable to run those routes with the precision required in the National Football League.

And those youngsters had been playing the position for years.

Given the Browns' dire straits at the position and Pryor's impressive athleticism, it's hardly surprising Cleveland rolled the dice. It's a no-risk investment. If Pryor flames out, the team is no worse off than it was before he got there.

However, Pryor's athleticism wasn't enough for him to stick in the NFL at the position he knows. So don't go getting your hopes up about him sticking at a position he doesn't.

Gary Davenport is an NFL analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and the Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter at @IDPSharks.