Renfrow tabbed as one of NFL’s most underappreciated players

NFL.com recently published an article listing the league’s most underappreciated players in the AFC, and former Clemson star Hunter Renfrow was tabbed as one of those underappreciated players despite the fact that the Las Vegas Raiders receiver earned his first Pro Bowl selection in 2021.

NFL Network Analytics Expert Cynthia Frelund, who authored the article for NFL.com, came up with her list of underappreciated players using her context-based models.

As Frelund noted in her article, she began by calculating and then ranking each player’s season-long contribution metric by team — or win share, which measures each player’s production during a season (in this case, the 2021 season) and lends insight into each player’s contribution to their team’s overall win total.

While the contribution metric is the most important part of Frelund’s method, she also factored in each player’s salary by position, using contract data from Over The Cap, in order to get context around which players were being “underappreciated.” Frelund then weighted players drafted in the second round or later who have no more than two Pro Bowl nods to their names.

With all of that said, here is why Frelund deemed Renfrow as one of the NFL’s most underappreciated players in the AFC:

“Yes, Renfrow is coming off his first career Pro Bowl — but it’s fair to wonder if the former fifth-round pick has been overshadowed in Las Vegas by this offseason’s Davante Adams acquisition,” Frelund wrote. “NGS shows that Renfrow’s plus-11.5 catch rate over expected when aligned wide last season paced the NFL. He also averaged 3.4 yards of target separation when aligned wide (fourth-most). His versatility will allow him to pair well with Adams, too; Renfrow’s 643 receiving yards last season from the slot ranked sixth in the NFL, while he scored five times on passes outside the numbers (tied for 10th).”

Renfrow, who will be 27 years old entering the 2023 season, set career highs and ranked among the top 10 in the league in receptions (103) and receiving touchdowns (nine) last season. He also led the team in receiving yards with 1,038 – becoming the first Raiders receiver to record over 1,000 receiving yards in a season since 2016.

Renfrow became just the third player in franchise history to record 100-plus receptions in a single season. He is also just the second wide receiver to record both 100-plus receptions and 1,000-plus receiving yards in a single season.

For his NFL career so far (2019-21), Renfrow has tallied 208 catches for 2,299 yards and 15 touchdowns.

–Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

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