Tag: Hunter Renfrow

Hunter Renfrow says goodbye to Raiders

Ahead of his expected release, Hunter Renfrow said his goodbye to Raider Nation

We are just under two hours before the official start of NFL free agency. At which point the Raiders are expected to release receiver Hunter Renfrow.

Ahead of his release being made official, the former Pro Bowl slot receiver took to social media to say goodbye to the team on which he spent the past five seasons.

“Once a Raider always a Raider,” Renfrow ended his message with.

Renfrow was selected in the fifth round of the 2019 draft (149 overall) out of Clemson. He went on to catch 269 passes for 2884 yards and 17 TD’s. And the term ‘Third and Renfrow” became a regular part of our vernacular.

This included a season in which he caught 103 passes in a season which is third in team history, just one behind the record Tim Brown had held for 23 years. It would lead to Renfrow receiving a new long term deal.

Then he saw a sharp downturn in his targets and receptions when Josh McDaniels took over as head coach. And now the team is taking the $8.2 million in cap relief with his release. Sad ending to a once very promising looking career for Renfrow with the Raiders.

What Condition the Position is in: Assessing Raiders level of need at WR ahead of free agency

What Condition Raiders Position is in: wide receiver

With free agency under a month away, it’s time to check in on the Raiders’ wide receiver position to give it a condition of either Strong, Stable, Unstable, Serious, or Critical.

Starters: Davante Adams, Jakobi Meyers, Hunter Renfrow
Depth: Tre Tucker, DJ Turner, Kristian Wilkerson
Free Agents: DeAndre Carter

Adams had a down year with the Raiders due in large part to the QB situation. But keep in mind a down year for Adams is still better than the best year for most receivers. Meyers enjoyed a career year while Adams was dragging coverage away from him. Renfrow had his second poor season in Josh McDaniels’s offense that forgot he existed. Tucker flashed late in his rookie season and could be one to watch.

Condition: Strong

Adams is still one of the best in the game and getting a QB with an arm and pocket presence will bear that out. Meyers proved he is a worthy number two starter. The prevailing thinking is that the team will be moving on from Renfrow, opting for the cap money it would save. His departure would only drop the condition to Stable, mainly because the team likes the speedy Tucker to step up in that case, so they’d still be ok.

B/R picks the 3 biggest priorities for the Saints this offseason

As the Saints enter a make or break offseason, Bleacher Report list the three biggest priorities this offseason for better results in 2024:

The Saints are heading into a make or break season with an aging team and a coach who is on the hot seat. If things don’t work in 2024, New Orleans will likely hit the reset button. Bleacher Report’s Maurice Moton has identified the priorities this offseason for the Saints to achieve the desired success.

Let’s look at his first point. The first priority is hiring an offensive coordinator to get the best out of Derek Carr. This is the number one most important decision of the offseason. New Orleans can’t go through next year with the same issues offensively. Carr has a reputation of struggling in his first year in a system. No one can afford that trend to continue. The team will struggle, Dennis Allen will be fired and in turn so will the new offensive coordinator.

The second priority is getting creative with more salary cap gymnastics. This is simple. The Saints are over the cap by more than $80 million and can’t go into the offseason that way. This is regular so it’s almost just something to document opposed to worrying about it. They always get it done and typically without much loss on the roster.

And the last thing Bleacher Report suggests is finding a way to reunite Carr with his old Raiders teammate Hunter Renfrow. While it sounds good on paper to reunite the pair, it doesn’t feel necessary. Renfrow’s usage and production have plummeted over the last two seasons. Gaining talent in the trenches is a greater priority than adding a receiver. If the Saints do add a receiver, they shouldn’t be dead-set on adding Renfrow. He may not be available until after June 1, so this gives the Saints all of free agency and the draft to view other options.

[lawrence-auto-related count=4]

Raiders wide receiver corps ranked slowest in NFL

Times they are-a-changin: Raiders wide receiver corps ranked slowest in NFL

Never in my life did I expect to see a stat like this for the Raiders. The slowest wide receiver corps in the league?? Al Davis is spinning in his grave.

Many of you are probably wondering why Tre Tucker’s speed wouldn’t raise this number a bit. Well, first of all, as the chart suggests, it’s weighted for routes run. And Tucker was not a big part of the Raiders offense this season.

With routes run as the filter here, and since I don’t have the raw routes run numbers, I will go by targets, let’s list the Raiders receivers by targets and their 40 times.

Davante Adams 4.56, 963 snaps, 175 targets
Jakobi Meyers 4.63, 903 snaps, 106 targets
Hunter Renfrow 4.59, 363 snaps, 37 targets
Tre Tucker 4.4 334 snaps, 34 targets
DeAndre Carter 4.44, 102 snaps, 7 targets

So, yeah, Tucker has a decent 40 time of 4.4 flat. Though, it’s no Jacoby Ford (4.28) or Darrius Heyward-Bey (4.3). Not many are.

But more importantly, Tucker saw just a third of the snaps this season with Adams and Meyers getting the vest majority of the snaps and targets and their 40 times are not special.

Not that any of this is a big deal, really. Adams in certainly a deep threat with plenty of ability to get separation. Tucker did see his snaps and targets go up over the final few games of the season, twice setting new career-highs in catches and yards in those games.

Mostly it’s just pretty stunning to see the Raiders of all teams last on this list as classically, that has not been the case.

5 potential Raiders offseason cuts

5 potential Raiders offseason cuts and cap ramifications

There is a bit of house cleaning that needs to happen this offseason for the Raiders. Currently they have around $38.8 million in cap space. That lands them at 12th most in the league. But they can do better. 

Cuts aren’t always about cap savings, to be clear. But sometimes it’s either the main reason for the cut or a nice byproduct. Should they make all five of the cuts below, the Raiders would save an additional $13.86 million to bring their space under the cap to $52.64 million. That would jump them up to 8th in the league as it currently stands.

Podcast: NFL trade deadline recap, Saints-Bears preview with predictions

Podcast: NFL trade deadline recap, Saints-Bears preview with predictions

The Saints Wire podcast is live with managing editor John Sigler (@john_siglerr) and our host Ryan O’Leary (@RyanOLearySMG). You can subscribe for new episodes released each week on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your podcast service of choice.

This week we’re recapping an eventful NFL trade deadline which included a Saints-Raiders trade that may have been scuttled by sweeping layoffs in Las Vegas, then pivoting to Week 9’s matchup with the Chicago Bears. A vulnerable Saints run defense could become a problem against an underrated Bears rushing attack, but this is a game New Orleans should win handily.

Follow the Saints Wire Podcast:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts

Mickey Loomis: Saints were inclined to be buyers, not sellers at NFL trade deadline

No deals came to fruition, but Mickey Loomis says the Saints were inclined to be buyers, not sellers at Tuesday’s NFL trade deadline:

This lines up with what we’re hearing from national outlets: New Orleans Saints general manager Mickey Loomis said Tuesday evening that he and the team were inclined to be buyers, not sellers, at the NFL trade deadline. Loomis commented on the situation during a regular appearance on WWL Radio with Mike Hoss, which you can listen to here.

“We talked to a couple of teams about a couple of things, more in the acquisition area as opposed to trading somebody,” Loomis told Hoss. “We didn’t really talk about trading anyone from our team. We did talk to a couple teams about an acquisition, but I wouldn’t say it ever got really serious.”

One player the Saints reportedly looked to acquire was Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Hunter Renfrow, a favorite target of Derek Carr from his past experience with the team. But trade talks were scuttled in the hours leading up to the deadline, either through the teams struggling to work out the financial aspect or the Raiders firing anyone with authority to take Loomis’s phone call, including general manager Dave Ziegler.

Loomis added that these negotiations are often complicated by both team’s salary cap situations as well as the free agency outlook in the next offseason, not to mention their forecasts through the rest of the current season. It isn’t as simple as calling another team and offering a pick for a player before confirming a deal with the league office in New York.

And it’s easy to see why the Saints were looking to add more talent, not shed it. They’ve clawed their way back to a 4-4 record with several very winnable games in front of them; it will be a big disappointment if they don’t go into the bye week with a 6-4 record later in November. They’re coming off maybe their most impressive win of the season and they have few contracts that could be traded away for salary cap relief.

The talent on the roster isn’t the problem. It’s been the self-inflicted wounds holding them back: poor execution, mental errors, and too many sloppy penalties. If they don’t get to the playoffs this year, it’ll because of poor coaching and lacking effort on Sundays, not any lacking physical tools or pro experience.

[lawrence-auto-related count=4]

Raiders firing GM, HC may have prohibited Saints-Hunter Renfrow trade

The Raiders fired their GM and head coach at the NFL trade deadline. It’s hard to hold trade talks when there’s nobody answering the phone:

It’s hard for Mickey Loomis to trade talks when there’s nobody answering the phone, and that may have been the case for the New Orleans Saints and Las Vegas Raiders at Tuesday’s NFL trade deadline. The Raiders announced late Tuesday night that team owner Mark Davis fired everyone at the top of the organization, including head coach Josh McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler.

NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports that the Saints were working on a trade for Raiders wide receiver Hunter Renfrow which fell apart in the hours leading up to the deadline, citing disagreements in which side would have paid more of Renfrow’s salary for the rest of the season. It shouldn’t have been difficult to work that out.

Renfrow is due $3.7 million in weekly game checks the rest of the season, but the Saints could have lowered that number by lowering him to the veteran minimum salary and getting the Raiders to cover the difference; he’s qualified for a $1.08 million base salary, which comes up to about $600,000 for the last ten weeks of the regular season. So the Saints would have paid that and the Raiders would have been on the hook for $2.1 million. Were they really so busy haggling over that number (which is less than 1% of the $224.8 million salary cap) they ran this down to the deadline?

Maybe the sudden layoffs at the top of the Raiders’ organizational chart played a factor. CBS Sports’ Josina Anderson cited a source with a team that was in negotiations with Las Vegas who said the lines of communication fell apart on trade deadline day: “Explains why they ghosted us …  Nobody responded yesterday.”

What could the future hold? Renfrow is due a hefty salary in 2024 that will probably make him a cap casualty, and the Saints are clearly interested in him at a near-minimum salary. If he’s willing to sign for that much in the spring and work to reestablish himself as a reliable receiving threat in the NFL, working again with his old quarterback Derek Carr, maybe they’ll circle back to him once he becomes available. But that won’t happen until the season is over and the Raiders have rebuilt their organization yet again.

[lawrence-auto-related count=4]

Report: Saints, Raiders ‘got very close’ on trade for WR Hunter Renfrow

NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports that the Saints and Raiders ‘got very close’ on a trade for WR Hunter Renfrow at the NFL trade deadline:

Well that’s a good nugget. The New Orleans Saints didn’t make a move at the NFL trade deadline on Tuesday, but not for lack of trying. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports that the Saints were working on a deal that would have brought in Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Hunter Renfrow, only for trade talks to fall apart when it got to the finances.

“The only one I thought might happen was Hunter Renfrow going to the Saints. There was just so much contractual stuff that they had to work out. Who was going to pay his salary, didn’t get it done by yesterday. In the end, did not end up happening.”

Renfrow is owed $3.7 million in weekly salary payments for the rest of the 2023 regular season, which the Saints could have barely fit on their books with an estimated $4.6 million in salary cap space per Over The Cap (Spotrac has them with $3.8 million in spending room).

One other complicating factor: the Raiders cleaned house overnight Tuesday with team owner Mark Davis firing general manager Davie Ziegler, head coach Josh McDaniels, and offensive coordinator Mick Lombardi after a disastrous 21-month run while also sending quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo to the bench in favor of rookie draft pick Aidan O’Connell. There may have been no one to answer the phones when the Saints were calling to iron out the details in a trade for Renfrow.

“Explains why they ghosted us,” one source with anonymous team told CBS Sports’ Josina Anderson. “Nobody responded yesterday.”

So Renfrow will remain in Las Vegas and the Saints will stick with their three-man rotation of Chris Olave, Michael Thomas, and Rashid Shaheed, with Lynn Bowden, A.T. Perry, and Keith Kirkwood coming off the bench. At least for now. Renfrow has a $13.7 million salary cap hit next season and he was demoted to a decoy role in McDaniels’ offense. Unless the Raiders suddenly reverse course, he’ll likely be a cap casualty in the spring.

And it feels like a safe bet that the Saints will be interested. Renfrow was Derek Carr’s favorite target for several years on the Raiders and the Saints have been linked to him since March, before they even signed Carr. If Renfrow is ultimately released and becomes a free agent, the Saints could sign him without jeopardizing a future compensatory NFL draft pick. But we’re putting the cart before the horse here. At this point Carr has the same weapons at his disposal he used to play his best game this past Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts. We’ll circle back to this Renfrow scuttlebutt in the spring.

[lawrence-auto-related count=4]

Much speculation ends in no trades for Raiders at deadline

Much speculation ends in no trades for Raiders at deadline

The deadline has passed for NFL teams to make trades. There were some interesting moves made, with 22 different franchises making a deal, but the Raiders were not among those teams either buying or selling. They stood pat.

At 3-5, with a struggling offense, there was some speculation that the Raiders might move someone for draft capital, but nothing materialized.

The primary names that were mentioned among Raiders players were wide receivers Davante Adams and Hunter Renfrow, and running back Josh Jacobs.

Adams and Jacobs’s names were mentioned because they are the stars on this offense and thus would figure to hold the most value in trade.

Renfrow was the most discussed because he has seen his role in the offense disappear two years after catching 106 passes and heading to the Pro Bowl.

All three players would probably welcome a trade in the hopes that they would see their numbers return to a range they were used to prior to this season. And also hopefully on a team with a shot at the playoffs.

Technically the Raiders are just two games under .500, but the offense has been so terrible, there is little hope they will somehow turn things around.

They have yet to score even 20 points this season, and are currently 30th in points scored and 31st in yards.