Ex-Pro Bowl WR Hunter Renfrow making comeback with NFC team

Hunter Renfrow is going from Derek Carr to Bryce Young.

The Carolina Panthers announced on Sunday that they have signed the former Pro Bowl wide receiver Renfrow in free agency. Renfrow, a South Carolina native who went to college at Clemson, is now set to make his return to the NFL after sitting out the 2024 season.

A two-time national champion at Clemson, Renfrow was a fifth-round pick in 2019 and spent the first five seasons of his NFL career with the Raiders. He peaked with the Raiders in the 2021 season, catching 103 passes for 1,038 yards and nine touchdowns and also going on to make the Pro Bowl team that year.

But after multiple subsequent seasons of waning production, the Raiders decided to release Renfrow following the 2023 season. Renfrow had also continued to experience ill effects from a 2022 concussion and ended up going unsigned for the entire 2024 NFL campaign.

As for the Panthers, they went 5-12 last year (a three-game improvement from 2023) and have been adding a good amount of talent this offseason. They notably selected two wide receivers in this year’s draft (picking Alabama’s Teitairoa McMillan in the first round and then Colorado’s Jimmy Horn Jr. in the sixth round).

With former first-round pick Xavier Legette and two-time Pro Bowl receiver Adam Thielen also in their WR room, Carolina still feels that a veteran slot receiver like Renfrow will be able to help them out next season. The Panthers also signed another out-of-the-box pass-catcher earlier this month and will now be betting on a receiver who hasn’t played at all since 2023 in Renfrow.