Terrelle Pryor had a very good reason for telling the Steelers not to draft him

Pryor grew up outside Pittsburgh but he thought it best to take his NFL talents elsewhere

Before Terrelle Pryor burst onto the scene as one of the NFL's most athletic wide receivers, he was a quarterback for his first three seasons, all with the Raiders. Given his current job title, you can probably deduce that he wasn't consistent enough to remain there, and that's what precipitated the position switch.

But back in 2011, when Pryor entered the summer supplemental draft, he was an intriguing prospect, mostly because of his sheer athleticism. But the former Ohio State standout, who played high school football just outside Pittsburgh, made it clear that he didn't want to play for the hometown Steelers, and he had a very good reason.

"Coming out of the supplemental draft, we talked about them possibly drafting me," Pryor said, via ESPN.com's Jeremy Fowler. "I just told them, it's pretty close to home and I play quarterback, I didn't feel comfortable playing there at quarterback because of all the people I know and people know me. It can get messy. The focus can't be there. I kind of told them, as much as I wanted to play there, because obviously it's a great organization, at the same time it probably wouldn't have worked out because there would have been a lot of focus issues, probably."

This meshes with a story from 2013, written by Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. According to Pryor at the time, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said he would take Pryor, but with a caveat.

"Mike said, 'Hey, I'll draft you if you want to play here,'" Pryor said at the time, according to Fittipaldo. "But he gave me a story when he was in Tampa Bay about a quarterback who was in the same hometown as his NFL team and it was hard for him."

"I don't know what the guys up top were thinking, but Coach Tomlin gave me an opportunity if I wanted to. I ended up saying no because, at a young age, I didn't want to be near home and having distractions around me."

Tomlin first met Pryor in 2007, back when the former was in his first year on the job and the later was just a teenager.

"Sometime position changes have a lot to do with desire," Tomlin said. "Maybe his perspective of being a member of the National Football League has changed. I've always viewed him as a football player first, a positional guy second."

Pryor's decision to switch positions proved to be the right one. He has 51 catches for 627 yards this season, including four touchdowns. In May, he talked about the progress he had made.

"[I'm] 10 times [better than last year]," Pryor said. "I look at the film and it amazes me, and I give that to [receivers coach Al] Saunders, because just sitting there and doing the extra meeting time with him and him really breaking down certain routes to me and how he wants them run, it's awesome."

Pryor added: "I just really want to go beat up on some corners. Catch the ball over them, run past them, catch the ball stiff-arm them whatever, it doesn't matter."

It's easy to dismiss someone who has virtually no experience at receiver talking about dominating NFL cornerbacks, but Pryor wasn't joking. He's a legit talent, and one that will be in line for a big payday if the production continues.