Agent: Terrelle Pryor put in bad spot

— -- Terrelle Pryor's agent blasted Dennis Allen's handling of his client Monday after the Oakland Raiders coach announced the quarterback would start Sunday's season finale against the Denver Broncos.

"I think they're putting him in hopes that he fails," Jerome Stanley told CSNBayArea.com. "That's what I think Coach is doing. I think they're putting him in hopes that he has a bad game, so he can then justify the Matt McGloin situation. I think that's what's going on, I do, and it's ridiculous."

On Tuesday morning, Pryor took to his Twitter account to distance himself from his agent's comments and apologized for them.

Pryor won the job in training camp, beating out Matt Flynn, and started eight of the Raiders' first nine games. (Flynn started against the Washington Redskins after Pryor suffered a concussion in Denver the previous week, but the Raiders released him in October.) 

McGloin, the fourth-stringer in training camp, took over after Pryor suffered a sprained MCL in his right knee against the New York Giants on Nov. 10 and has started the past six games, remaining the starter even after Pryor's injury healed. The undrafted rookie free agent out of Penn State won his first start Nov. 17 against the Houston Texans with the help of Oakland's defense, but he hasn't won since.

A loss Sunday would drop the Raiders to 4-12 and Allen's record to 8-24 in two seasons as coach. Stanley said he believes Allen is going back to Pryor to justify his decision to stick with McGloin and protect his job, which might be in jeopardy. Allen was rebuffed by owner Mark Davis two weeks ago when he sought extensions for coaches on his staff with expiring contracts, league sources have told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter.

"You have to understand the coach is putting him in, he doesn't want him to look good," Stanley told CSNBayArea.com. "And you can write that. He doesn't want him to look good because, if he looks good this week, it makes the past five weeks look like a bad decision. [Allen] doesn't want him to look good, he wants him to look bad. That is what is going on."

Earlier Monday, Allen said his decision to start Pryor didn't mean that McGloin had fallen out of favor.

"Absolutely not," Allen said. "We want to get another opportunity to see, and we've said for a while now that we want to be able to evaluate Terrelle, so here's an opportunity to go in and do that. Listen, when Terrelle's played, he's gone in and done a good job. So we anticipate he'll go in and play well."

Oakland is 3-5 in Pryor's starts. Pryor has a passer rating of 66.0 in completing 57.7 percent of his passes (135 of 234) for 1,591 yards with five touchdowns and 11 interceptions. He has been picked off eight times since his last touchdown pass. He also has 527 yards on 74 carries, including a 93-yard TD run Oct. 27 against Pittsburgh.

McGloin has a passer rating of 76.1. He was 20-of-36 for 206 yards with an interception in Oakland's 26-13 loss Sunday to San Diego.

"We got a chance to see Matt McGloin for six games. I liked a lot of things that I saw in Matt," Allen said. It's been a while since we've gotten an opportunity to see Terrelle in a game, and I want to get him in the game and get another opportunity to evaluate him."

Stanley told CSNBayArea.com that if Allen really intended to evaluate Pryor, he should have reinserted him as the starter following the Raiders' Thanksgiving Day loss to the Dallas Cowboys.

Although Pryor initially sulked after being benched, he kept a "good teammate" face going for the media, Allen said Monday.

Stanley said he's confident Pryor can succeed as a starting quarterback in the NFL.

"I expect that. I'll be shocked if it didn't happen," he told CSNBayArea.com.

ESPN.com Raiders reporter Paul Gutierrez contributed to this report.