NFL Player News

The Panthers waived Luther on Thursday.

Luther inked a futures deal with Carolina after the regular season ended but will now be looking for his fifth NFL team since entering the league as an undrafted free agent out of Gardner-Webb back in 2023. He's yet to appear in a regular-season game.

The Jets waived Winston on Thursday.

The 28-year-old wideout has been well traveled since entering the NFL as an undrafted free agent out of Washington State in 2020. Winston appeared in three regular-season games for the Saints in 2021, catching one pass for five yards. He'll now look for his sixth team.

The Jets waived Riley (undisclosed) with an injury designation Thursday.

The 25-year-old wide receiver has yet to appear in a regular-season game in the NFL. He recorded 33 catches for 635 yards and five touchdowns at Florida A&M back in 2023 before going undrafted and signing with the Jets.

The Panthers released Matthews on Thursday.

Matthews played 26 offensive snaps across four regular-season games last season but didn't record a catch on just one target. He inked a futures deal with Carolina back in January but is now out of a roster spot following the NFL Draft.

Lockhart (undisclosed) reverted to Kansas City's injured reserve Wednesday, Aaron Wilson of KPRC 2 Houston reports.

Lockhart was waived with an injury designation by the Chiefs on Tuesday but will now return to the team after clearing waivers. The rookie undrafted free agent will now be forced to sit out the entirety of the 2025 campaign unless he's gets an injury settlement.

Hill posted on his Snapchat account Wednesday that he had a procedure to remove screws from his left wrist, Marcel Louis-Jacques of ESPN.com reports.

Hill previously had surgery on the wrist in question earlier this offseason. The original injury stemmed from a joint practice with the Commanders last August, but the veteran wide receiver played through the pain en route to an 81-959-6 line on 123 targets across 17 regular-season games. Each of those marks equated to campaign lows since joining the Dolphins in 2022, and his TD total matched a career low since he was selected in the fifth round of the 2016 Draft. Coach Mike McDaniel said in February that Hill likely won't resume football activities until "around summertime going into training camp," so there appears to be a good chance that he misses the entire offseason program in May and early June.

Tolbert likely will be the Cowboys' No. 3 wide receiver after they traded for George Pickens, Jon Machota of The Athletic reports.

Tolbert enjoyed a breakout of sorts in 2024, his third pro season, with a 49-610-7 receiving line on 79 targets, notably scoring on five of his seven catches inside the 10-yard line. He's never earned targets at a high rate, however, and even last season he saw the ball on just 14.8 percent of routes, the sixth-lowest mark among WRs with 500-plus routes. Tolbert's potential competition for the No. 3 role is explosive return man KaVontae Turpin, who ran only 201 routes last season but was targeted on 25.9 percent of them, and Jonathan Mingo, a 2023 second-round pick of the Panthers who has yet to make an impact as a pro.

Wilson may compete for a starting job after the Steelers traded WR George Pickens to Dallas, Chris Adamski of TribLive.com reports.

Drafted 84th overall last spring, Wilson played just one game as a rookie, missing Week 1 with an ankle injury and Weeks 7-18 with a hamstring injury. In between, he was a healthy scratch four times and played just five snaps in his lone appearance, never truly getting a foot in the door. Steelers GM Omar Khan said in February that Wilson might have contributed in the playoffs had the team advanced beyond the first round, and it now seems he has a shot at the No. 2 WR role for his second pro season. With 4.39 speed at 5-foot-11, 185 pounds, Wilson profiles as a perimeter receiver who runs a lot of downfield routes, which would make it difficult to get a lot of targets in an offense with DK Metcalf at wide receiver and run-first coordinator Arthur Smith calling plays.

Woods has improved odds for a starting job after the Steelers traded WR George Pickens to Dallas on Wednesday, Chris Adamski of TribLive.com reports.

Even if the 33-year-old ends up starting, it'd likely be in a similar role to what we saw last season from Van Jefferson, who got 40 targets on 721 offensive snaps while starting 12 of 17 regular-season games. While he had some prolific seasons earlier in his career, Woods mostly is valued for blocking and leadership at this point, having averaged 31 receiving yards per game or less in three straight seasons since leaving the Rams. As things currently stand, his main competition for snaps behind DK Metcalf would be 162-pound slot man Calvin Austin and 2024 third-round pick Roman Wilson.

Austin has improved odds for a starting job after the Steelers traded WR George Pickens to Dallas, Chris Adamski of TribLive.com reports.

Austin was second among Pittsburgh's wide receivers in targets, catches and yards last season, but he didn't get much playing time in formations with fewer than three wide receivers, and his average of 3.4 targets per game was far below what's needed for fantasy relevance in most leagues. It could be a similar situation this year, only with DK Metcalf replacing Pickens as the clear No. 1 and Robert Woods replacing Van Jefferson as the veteran who is valued for blocking and experience more so than drawing targets. Austin is in a better position than he would've been had the Steelers kept both Metcalf and Pickens, but huge snap counts remain unlikely for one of the NFL's smallest players (Austin is listed at 5-foot-9, 162 pounds).