I spent some time really focusing on the QBs in practice, today. As explained by Vic Tafur, here, the Raiders definitely have Flynn and Pryor 1 and 2 and it shows in camp. The two alternated consistently, today, with Flynn getting a break with the ones, at times, and Pryor coming in. Neither McGloin nor Wilson got many snaps.
Matt Flynn had a decent but unspectacular day and, in fact, that may be the best description I can offer of Flynn. He doesn’t have the “wow” plays that others do but he doesn’t frequently make bone-headed throws, either.
Whether or not that style translates to him having success in the NFL will depend largely on the talent around him. When he was in Green Bay, he was able to be amazingly successful in his two starts because he was surrounded by talented players.
No one is going to confuse the Oakland roster with Green Bay’s, however, and the jury is out on whether Flynn can be successful on this team. He does a decent job of leading his receivers and throws a catchable ball but his passes also tend to arrive with less zip than you’d like and that allows defenders to make some plays on them. This may be a question of velocity, actually, with his arm strength not giving him the ability to snap the ball into his target with the velocity that would be ideal.
QB Terrelle Pryor has made more big plays than Flynn in camp but aside from the big passes- the ones that make the Twitter highlight-reel as it were – he still struggles with accuracy. His passes have a decided nose-down angle to them that make them a little difficult to hold onto and his passes frequently come a little behind the receiver. His best and most catchable passes are the deep ones that have the arc under them to negate the downward tilt of the ball and drop well to the receivers.
Despite the big plays by Pryor, I have yet to see a day in which I felt, top to bottom, that Pryor had outperformed Flynn. Flynn isn’t a big-play quarterback but he’s by far the more consistent of the two and he usually makes better decisions on where to go with the football. He doesn’t have the deep arm that Pryor has but he’s got enough to place the football well within 20 yards.
Neither of the QBs really appear to be "the guy" long term and the Raiders will probably have to keep looking for their franchise QB unless Tyler Wilson can really take a bit step up next year.
As a side note, Dennis Allen said that Flynn will likely get a decent amount of time in preseason because of his lack of experience as an NFL starter otherwise, saying, “we wanna make sure we get him enough work so that he’ll be ready to go when the regular season comes around.” Allen would not commit to any amount certain amount of playing time and said that they hadn’t yet discussed how much time he’d be in for the Dallas game.
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