Raiders receiver Hunter Renfrow had a breakout season in 2021, recording 103 catches for 1,038 yards with nine touchdowns. He led Las Vegas in all three of those categories that season, helping power the offense to a playoff berth.
But injuries derailed Renfrow’s 2022 season, as he caught just 36 passes for 330 yards with two TDs in 10 games.
Renfrow said on Friday that he felt like he let a lot of his teammates down last year.
“That’s something that left a bad taste in my mouth and something that I want to get over and prove to them — through the spring and also going into the season — that I’m a guy that they can count on and just go and be consistent,” Renfrow said in his press conference.
Now that he’s in his second year under head coach Josh McDaniels, he’s feeling much more comfortable with the offensive system.
“Just from the spring and the verbiage and going through these first few days of camp, these first few installs, everything is so much more smooth, so much more familiar,” Renfrow said. “And the guys are familiar, the coaching staff’s familiar — how they coach. And so, I feel like I’m in a lot better place than I was this time last year.”
That should put Renfrow, 27, in a much better position to excel once the regular season begins in September.
“I’m hoping last year was a fluke,” Renfrow said. “I’d like to think I’ve been playing at a decent level at Clemson for four or five years, and then four or five years here. So, I didn’t want to get all scared all of a sudden and think I had to do all this and change who I am.”
A fifth-round pick in 2019, Renfrow signed a two-year extension with the Raiders in June 2022 — so he’s under contract through the 2024 season. We’ll see if Renfrow can get back to his 2021 levels of production with Jimmy Garoppolo as his quarterback.
