Raiders release four, including fan favorite Renfrow
The Las Vegas Raiders’ roster makeover continued with the official start of the 2024-25 NFL league year Wednesday afternoon.
New general manager Tom Telesco and now permanent coach Antonio Pierce moved further in the direction of making the personnel their own by shedding four veterans. Quarterbacks Jimmy Garoppolo and Brian Hoyer, defensive tackle Jerry Tillery and wide receiver Hunter Renfrow were all released. The first three were all acquisitions of the previous regime, general manager Dave Ziegler and coach Josh Mcdaniels, while Renfrow dates back to coach Jon Gruden’s tenure, having been selected in the fifth round of the 2019 NFL Draft out of Clemson.
Renfrow made the biggest impact of the recently cut players, emerging as one of the NFL’S best slot receivers during the 2021-22 playoff season and reaching the Pro Bowl with a statistics line of 103 catches for 1,038 yards and nine touchdowns.
He then signed a two-year, $32 million contract extension but never found a role under Mcdaniels or even Pierce’s half-season as interim coach last year.
Garoppolo signed a three-year, $72 million contract with Las Vegas last offseason to serve as its starting quarterback but struggled early in the season. He led the league in interceptions through eight weeks and Pierce benched him for rookie Aidan O’connell after taking over the job.
Garoppolo’s cut was set to bring a $28 million dead cap hit to the Raiders, but that figure should diminish after the NFL handed down a performance-enhancing drugs suspension to him last month.
The 32-year-old Garoppolo will miss the first two games of next season but spoke enthusiastically about continuing his NFL career at the end of last season. The 38-year-old Hoyer, Garoppolo’s planned backup who ended up starting one game for the Silver and Black, is expected to retire.
Tillery was the only somewhat unforeseen cut after he was a key cog in last year’s defensive-line rotation, though perhaps it shouldn’t have been that surprising given his history with Telesco. The general manager initially drafted Tillery with the Los Angeles Chargers in the first round of the 2019 Draft out of Notre Dame.
But Tillery underperformed in Los Angeles and the relationship soured, leading to his midseason release during the 2022-23 season. The Raiders claimed Tillery off waivers, and he performed better in Las Vegas than he had with the divisional rival.
The blockbuster signing of Christian Wilkins earlier this week made Tillery expendable, though. The addition of Wilkins, another 2019 first-round pick out of Clemson, maybe gave some fans a glimmer of hope that Renfrow would stay.
The two are close friends dating back to their college days, but that wasn’t ultimately enough for Telesco to keep Renfrow’s big-money contract on the books.
Some financial clearing was bound to happen with Wilkins and quarterback Gardner Minshew on their way to the Raiders, and it arrived mostly as expected.