BEREA, Ohio -- Putting what Terrelle Pryor accomplished in making the transition from NFL quarterback to 1,000-yard receiver requires going back to the American Football League.

Pryor, though, is well aware.

"Marlin Briscoe," he blared when it was brought to his attention what a rare feat he had accomplished. (Pryor is a bit of an NFL historian.)

Briscoe played quarterback for the AFL's Denver Broncos in 1968. He moved to receiver the next season. Hines Ward and Antwan Randle-El, both former Pittsburgh Steelers, moved from playing quarterback in college to receiver in the pros. But neither started their careers as a quarterback.

Pryor finished the season with 77 receptions, 1,007 yards and four touchdowns, all team highs. He was the Cleveland Browns' best outside threat, showed he had no fear going over the middle and displayed an uncanny ability to go after the ball. There is room for growth, but by most any measure this season has to be judged as an individual success for Pryor.

Making the move at the point in his career that he did may be unprecedented. He had played three years at quarterback and bounced from Oakland to Seattle to Kansas City to Cincinnati before he made the transition. Even when he did, he had to sit out the major portion of a season before he was given the chance full time.

He summed up his belief in his ability to make the switch after his first training camp practice in 2015: "It's the effort and how you go about the task."

When Pryor made the transition, he went full speed, spending a good part of two summers working with former receiver Randy Moss at his camp in North Carolina. A typical day there, Pryor said, started at 8 a.m. with lifting and cardio work, followed by 2 1/2 hours on the field working on technique and drills. The day concluded with what sounds like a test of endurance; Pryor and the other receivers at the camp ran 10 to 15 80-yard sprints with a 15-second break between each run. The words "80 yards" and "sprint" usually are not correlated.

The second facet of the approach was the mental one. When it was put to Pryor midway through the season that his transition seemed impossible, he merely said: "Nothing is impossible."

This is a player who will never lack for confidence or belief in himself. That can rub people the wrong way, but it also makes him who he is.

"There's going to be always naysayers," he said. "There's people saying you can't do this or you can't do that throughout life. It's not just sports. It's your life. Walking down the street, me and you can be hanging out, and somebody could be hating on you.

"You just got to live life. I got to worry about myself, my craft. I got to worry about being the best teammate I can be. I got to worry about being a better person. I can't really worry about the naysayers and stuff like that.

"So I think with that clear mind, that tunnel vision, that focus that you have to have, I think you can do anything."

Pryor is an emotional person and player. That sometimes gets him into touchy situations. The most glaring this season was when he was upset about the Browns having to use a timeout early in a December loss to the Cincinnati Bengals.

He and Robert Griffin III explained what looked like an argument in the huddle was just competitiveness, but when the Browns won their first game because San Diego had to rush a last-play attempted field goal, Pryor pointed out why he was so upset about using that timeout. If the Chargers had one, he said, there would have been no rush. Timeouts, he said, are important.

That emotional approach is also part of who Pryor is. And he showed it when discussed the pregame talk he heard from a pastor before the Browns' finale in Pittsburgh.

He said the pastor talked about growing up and every Sunday sitting down in front of the TV to watch the Browns play. Sitting with him was his father. Then he said the game against the Pittsburgh Steelers would be the same. He'd watch the game with his father, who was still alive.

"It's kind of the reason why I play this sport," Pryor said. "But I never did really realize or have it come to my mind how important that is.

"We play the sport not only for ourselves and our selfish reasons, but it's motivation and we're there for other people's happiness. That was special. It hit my heart."

Up next for Pryor: Determining his future.

The first goal in Browns owner Jimmy Haslam's three-point plan for the offseason was to retain the team's talented players, something that hasn't happened in the past.

Pryor and linebacker Jamie Collins are the two prominent free agents to-be. Pryor said that he has told his agents Drew and Jason Rosehnhaus that he would love to stay in Cleveland, and he loves playing for coach Hue Jackson. But he repeated it had to make sense for both sides.

"I told them and they've seen," Pryor said. "We have a lot of conversations. At the end of the day as you guys know, football is a business."