Hunter Renfrow to make NFL comeback, signs contract with Carolina Panthers

WR Hunter Renfrow did not play this past season after being released last offseason by the Las Vegas Raiders. He’ll now return to the league, though, with his reported signing on Sunday.

The Panthers announced the deal themselves this evening.

We have agreed to terms with Hunter Renfrow

Learn more here: https://t.co/e4mOf2KJTh@Verizon | #KeepPounding pic.twitter.com/oAmjB9n75M

— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) April 27, 2025

“The Panthers added another pass-catching option following the draft, agreeing to terms with former Raiders receiver and Clemson star Hunter Renfrow Sunday night,” Darin Gaant wrote this evening in the team’s release. “The 29-year-old Renfrow was out of the league last year, but has a track record of production out of the slot.”

Renfrow, a former fifth-round pick by Oakland in 2019, spent five seasons as a Raider. He’d finish towards the top of their receiving statistics over his half-decade while with the franchise as he posted 269 receptions, on a 74.1% catch rate, for 2,884 yards, good for 39.5 yards per game, and 17 touchdowns. That’d include a career-best season as their top pass-catcher with 103 catches on 128 targets, an 80.5% catch rate, for 1,038 yards, good for 61.1 yards a game, with nine scores in 2021 as he’d be a Pro Bowler.

However, in 2022 and 2023, Renfrow’s production declined with 61 receptions for 585 yards, for 21.7 yards a game on average, and just two touchdowns scored combined, including zero touchdowns in his last season in the league. That would lead to, after they were unable to trade him elsewhere, the cost-cutting move by Las Vegas to release him at the time after they’d signed him to a bigger extension coming off his season two years prior in ’21.

Now, after a year off the field, Renfrow will be back in the NFL. It’ll be a homecoming for him to back to the Carolinas. He’s a native of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and attended college at Clemson, where he was a two-time national champion with the Tigers.

Carolina already has Adam Thielen, Xavier Legette, and Jalen Coker in their receiver room. They added a pair of productive collegiate receivers with their first and final picks respectively in this year’s draft with Tetairoa McMillan (Arizona) and Jimmy Horn Jr. (Colorado). They’ll now try to be helpful targets for a passing offense that has been among the league’s worst over the past four years.

That corps now includes Renfrow in his comeback to the National Football League. That’ll give the Panthers a veteran, reliable target among those receivers next season.