Five days after a home-state reunion that barely registered, former Clemson wide receiver E.J. Williams is out of work again.
The Carolina Panthers released him from the practice squad Tuesday and replaced him with veteran returner Ihmir Smith-Marsette, via the NFL transaction wire.
For Tigers fans who once pictured Williams as the next link in Clemson’s receiver pipeline, the move feels less like a surprise than a closing chapter.
Williams arrived in 2020 as a consensus four-star from Central High in Phenix City, Alabama, turning down Alabama and Georgia to play for Dabo Swinney.
As a true freshman, he flashed: 24 catches, 306 yards and two touchdowns, including a 33-yard score and a one-handed grab from Trevor Lawrence in the ACC Championship against Notre Dame.
For a moment, he looked like the next big thing in orange. Then the production vanished.
Injuries and inconsistency defined the next two seasons. In 2021, he managed nine catches for 66 yards. In 2022 he finished with seven receptions for 70 yards and zero scores while seeing limited snaps.
Over three years at Clemson he totaled 40 catches for 442 yards and two touchdowns—numbers that never matched the recruiting hype or the freshman highlight reel.
By December 2022, he entered the transfer portal, a quiet admission that the Tigers experiment had stalled.
He later found more production at Indiana, including a 36-catch, six-touchdown senior year on a national-title team, then signed with the Raiders as an undrafted free agent. Las Vegas cut him at the end of camp.
Carolina gave him a short look after waiving Jimmy Horn Jr., then decided a familiar special-teams veteran was more useful. Williams, now 24, is free to sign elsewhere. That is the NFL grind.
It is also a familiar Clemson story: early promise, lingering injuries, a transfer, and a professional career that so far consists of brief practice-squad stops.
Clemson has produced plenty of NFL receivers. Williams was supposed to be one of them. Instead, he became a reminder that four-star rankings and one electric freshman night do not guarantee a career.
Tigers fans can wish him well on the next roster. They do not have to pretend his time in Death Valley lived up to the billing.
