CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Wide receiver Hunter Renfrow dropped from 185 pounds to 150 pounds last year while being treated for ulcerative colitis, which played a big role in his decision to step away from the NFL after being released by the Las Vegas Raiders.
There was a stretch where the newest member of the Carolina Panthers suffered through seven straight days of 103-degree fevers.
Renfrow, 29, wondered if he would play football again after disappointing 2022 and 2023 seasons.
“I felt so bad those two years, and I felt like I let my teammates down so much,” Renfrow said Thursday. “Because I had expectations. I just signed a new contract [in 2022]. I had a new coaching staff that I was going to be perfect for. And I was just a dud.
“I was like, ‘Man, I know I don’t feel well, but I do not want to play football again. Like, I do not want to let people down. I just want to go over here in my corner, do what I do, get into business.'”
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Renfrow first began feeling “weird” at the end of the 2021 season when he made the Pro Bowl with a career-high 103 catches for 1,038 yards and nine touchdowns. He took a month off after the annual all-star game because he felt “kind of tired,” but didn’t think much of it.
He signed a two-year, $32 million deal with the Raiders during the 2022 offseason, but by training camp said, “I just felt as bad as I could.” It was during the struggles that the former star from nearby Clemson University was diagnosed with the chronic inflammatory bowel disease that causes inflammation and ulcers in the lining of the large intestine. He didn’t know much about ulcerative colitis at the time and tried to push through it.
“Trying my best even though my best wasn’t good enough at the time,” said Renfrow, who is now back to 185 pounds.
Renfrow caught only 36 passes for 330 yards and two touchdowns in 2022, then dropped to 25 catches, 255 yards and no touchdowns in 2023 and was released in March of 2024.
He was down to 150 pounds in March and April last year and had to make multiple trips to the emergency room because there was so much inflammation in his body. He began feeling better by July after tibial infusions and by September his weight shot up to 200 pounds.
“I hadn’t been able to eat for three years, and now I was eating everything under the sun,” Renfrow said.
He added that he thought about trying to join a team late last season but instead decided to wait until this year where he could “start fresh with a team starting with OTAs.”
Renfrow began feeling good enough in January to push his workouts to the level that made him comfortable he could compete again. He went to Clemson — where he is best known for catching the game-winning touchdown with 1 second left in the 2016 national championship game against Alabama — twice a week to work with the staff to get in shape.
“Now I’m here,” said Renfrow, who on Sunday signed a one-year deal with the Panthers, his favorite team growing up in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. “And I’m excited about playing football again.”
Before that, Renfrow went to a few high school football games that also inspired his return.
“I was like, ‘Man, they’re having fun. That’s what I want to do,'” Renfrow said. “That’s what I used to do. I used to have fun playing this game.”
So, he signed with the Panthers, hoping to add depth around 2025 first-round pick Tetairoa McMillan (No. 8 overall), 2024 first-round pick Xavier Legette (No. 32), veteran Adam Thielen, Jalen Coker and 2025 sixth-round pick Jimmy Horn Jr.
He’s also excited to work with quarterback Bryce Young, the top pick of the 2023 draft.
But mostly he’s just excited to be playing football again.
“You have a lot of occurrences like that build up over time,” Renfrow said. “You’re like, ‘Man, I kind of want to go out a different way if I’m going to go out.'”
