{"id":964311,"date":"2026-08-04T20:57:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T20:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/964311\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T20:57:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T20:57:27","slug":"panthers-dl-labryan-ray-retiring-mid-camp-team-making-five-roster-moves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/964311\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers DL LaBryan Ray Retiring Mid-Camp, Team Making Five Roster Moves"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Carolina Panthers announced that DT <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/R\/RayxLa02.htm?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=nfltraderumors.co&amp;utm_campaign=2026-08-04_pfr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">LaBryan Ray<\/a> has decided to retire ahead of the 2026 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Panthers make roster moves, after retirement of LaBryan Ray<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Se2BouIyn3\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/Se2BouIyn3<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Panthers\/status\/2084738298283475097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">August 4, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He\u2019ll be placed on the reserve\/retired list. Carolina also waived wide receiver Gabriel Benyard and waived-injured wide receiver <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/S\/SmitAi00.htm?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=nfltraderumors.co&amp;utm_campaign=2026-08-04_pfr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ainias Smith<\/a> while signing WRs Roc Taylor and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/C\/CookEl00.htm?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=nfltraderumors.co&amp;utm_campaign=2026-08-04_pfr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Elijah Cooks<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Losing Ray hurts Carolina\u2019s depth up front on the defensive line, and is the latest unexpected absence the Panthers will have to deal with ahead of the 2026 season.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ray, 28, wound up going undrafted out of Alabama back in 2022. He signed a three-year, $2.6 million contract with the Patriots. However, the Patriots waived Ray coming out of the preseason and later signed him to their practice squad.<\/p>\n<p>New England re-signed him to a futures contract in January 2023 but waived him after a month. The Panthers signed him to a contract in January 2023 and he re-signed ahead of each of the past two seasons.<\/p>\n<p>In 2025, Ray appeared in 13 games for the Panthers and recorded 13 total tackles.<\/p>\n<p>Looking for the latest NFL Insider News &amp; Rumors?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Be sure to follow <a style=\"color: #008000;\" href=\"https:\/\/nfltraderumors.co\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NFL Trade Rumors<\/a> on <a style=\"color: #008000;\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/nfltrade_rumors\/\" rel=\"nofollow\">X.com<\/a>\u00a0and <a style=\"color: #008000;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/nfltraderumors\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FACEBOOK<\/a>\u00a0for breaking NFL News and Rumors for all 32 teams!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Carolina Panthers announced that DT LaBryan Ray has decided to retire ahead of the 2026 season.\u00a0 Panthers&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":964312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2075],"tags":[10489,235,260,2567,23558,7,126982,10121,6,236,4067],"class_list":["post-964311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-carolina-panthers","tag-ainias-smith","tag-carolina","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-carolinapanthers","tag-elijah-cooks","tag-football","tag-gabriel-benyard","tag-labryan-ray","tag-nfl","tag-panthers","tag-roc-taylor"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117039244463411150","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=964311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/964311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/964312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=964311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=964311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=964311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}