Panthers legends recall the folk hero named Julius Peppers: ‘God gave Pep everything’

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To an elite few, Julius Peppers is “Pep.”

He’s “The Classified Mutant” with a “wingspan like a condor.”

He’s the somersaulting, black-visor-wearing, “he-could-still-go-get-10-sacks-right-now” player who’s days away from becoming the first person drafted by the Carolina Panthers inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

And according to his teammates in Carolina in 2002 — from his draft class-mates Dante Wesley and Will Witherspoon, to his pass-rushing-partner-in-crime Mike Rucker and others — he was the 6-foot-7, 290-pound quiet beast whose legend has reached that of a folk hero.

“All of us were blessed to play,” said Brentson Buckner, the Panthers’ veteran on the defensive line who helped mentor Peppers when he first arrived to Carolina. “God gave Dante something. He gave Will something. He gave me something.

“But God gave Pep everything.”

Here’s an oral history of Peppers’ time with the Carolina Panthers — from his arrival to Carolina, to the impact he made on the organization, to the stories his teammates still remember decades later.

Transforming the Carolina Panthers

The Panthers selected Julius Peppers out of the University of North Carolina over Joey Harrington with the No. 2 pick in the 2002 NFL Draft. The move would later be recognized as pivotal for the upstart Panthers, as they transformed from a 1-15 team in 2001 to a 7-9 team in 2002 — and then, ultimately, made a Super Bowl appearance to punctuate the season of 2003. The team boasted one of the best defensive lines in the game almost immediately after Peppers arrived. According to his teammates, that was no coincidence.

Buckner: Let me put this in perspective. The year before we draft him, we go 1-15. The only people left on the D-line were me, Ruck and (Kris) Jenks. And Jenks didn’t even start halfway through the year because he was just wild. We add Pep in that, and we become the best defensive line in the NFL. That’s when the rivalry started with Tampa, because Tampa would get mad. “How they become the best?”

But Ruck had just had (nine sacks) the year before. Jenks, we were just trying to corral Jenks. I had (4.5). But then when Pep come in, Jenks goes (seven), Ruck goes double digits, I get close to double digits, Pep goes double digits. It’s just one player. It changed the whole forecast. Then we become a defensive team. ...

We get Pep, and all of a sudden, shoot, Reggie Howard becomes a good cornerback. “Who is that?” is what people said. Terry Cousins becomes a household name. Ricky Manning. ... Dan Morgan coming back off injury, now he’s the best middle linebacker. “Fee” (Mark Fields) almost becomes Defensive Player of the Year. Spoon comes in and dominates — at 214 pounds playing middle linebacker.

Rucker: Stuff that’s unheard of.

Al Wallace: I think of some of the little things in practice (that make Pep stand out). Whether it was a smokescreen of him just jumping up and not just batting it down but catching it and flipping it back to Jake (Delhomme).

Buckner: Man, everybody was talking about Odell Beckham. We saw Pep make one-handed interceptions in passes down here. We even put him on offense.

Rucker: How many dudes on the defensive side of the ball were lining up on offense, you know?

Buckner: We’re playing Detroit here, and they used to run a play-action pass where the fullback would come and chop the defensive end. So all week, we’re working on like, “Look, Pep, you gotta protect your legs. They’re gonna come and chop you.” The first time they chop his legs, he does a darn somersault and lands back on his feet and gets a sack. Like, most people are in the hospital. I mean, he hit him, Pep flips, lands on his hands and flips back up and gets a sack on the quarterback.

Or, in Tampa Bay, they run a screen to Michael Pittman. Michael Pittman is a 4.4. Pep rushes the quarterback; Michael Pittman is gonna score. Pep passes every DB, every linebacker, and catches Pittman 50 yards downfield. And we ended up holding him to a field goal. That’s stuff that doesn’t make the newspaper. It’s not a highlight. But for us as a team, you’re on the field watching it: I used to catch myself sometimes being like, “I know I’m supposed to play, but I’m just looking at him like, ‘OK, what Pep gonna do?’”

Witherspoon: I’ll tell you how ridiculous this gets. We’d call a play in the huddle, and they (the defensive linemen) all called their own stunts. The linebackers played off of whatever the defensive line gave us.

Buckner: At that time, in 2002, my game was more mental than physical anyway. So I would look at formations and just know, “Aye man, let’s do this.” It hit for us at the Dallas preseason game. We went out there, and we were just like, “We just gonna go.” We became not afraid to be wrong because we trusted the linebackers. (Defensive coordinator) Jack Del Rio said, “If they don’t make y’all right, that’s on them.” And we were like, “This gonna be fun.”

Rucker: Jack was only here one year (in 2002). You go 1-15, and then that next year, we did our thing, and he got a head job.

Buckner: And then he created the Super Bowl team because he went down to Jacksonville, and he said, “This D-Line down here is better than that D-Line up there, they can’t touch us.” (Laughs.) And we said, “Oh, that’s how you feel? That’s how you feel the first game of the year? He wants to get us in the zone?”

Peppers could’ve been Cam Newton before Cam Newton

Peppers stood at the center of the first of two golden eras in Carolina Panthers history. There’s a long-held debate about which team — the 2003 team or the 2015 team — was better. Peppers, of course, is at the center of the discussion.

Buckner: Just imagine Pep in today’s game, with these 325-pound offensive linemen and these quarterbacks who want to run the ball. He’d probably still go and get 10 sacks right now. Ruck, do you think Pep could line up and get 10 sacks in today’s NFL, right now? What do you see? You watch games as much as I do.

Rucker: Absolutely.

Buckner: I coach in this game. I see the talent of the offensive linemen. With these quarterbacks who want to scramble and run and hold the ball—

Witherspoon: For our era, that guy was Mike Vick.

Buckner: And he was catching Mike Vick!

Witherspoon: How many times have you seen a replay where he literally grabs the ball from Mike’s hands?

Buckner: All of us got nightmares of playing Mike Vick. He was a freak of nature, too. But we had a 290-pound guy who was just as fast as him. That’s why I tell people today who want to start an argument: We would’ve beat the s--- outta the 2015 Panthers.

Wesley: (Laughs.) Yeah, oh yeah. We tell them that all the time.

Buckner: We had someone bigger than Cam and faster than Cam.

Witherspoon: It always comes down to style of play, that’s a big part of it. The way the game has changed.

Buckner: Now, I coached against that team. And they had the fanfare. It was ATL Charlotte edition, now. All the fans were there because Cam was a story by himself. You know what I mean? And I liked it. But when it came to putting your hand in the dirt, 2003 would’ve given them the business.

Zietlow, reporter: If Julius Peppers was this loud, in-your-face guy, would he have been Cam Newton before Cam Newton?

Buckner: Yes.

Wesley: Oh yeah.

Rucker: 1,000%. I mean, he had the story line. North Carolina. You go to this big school. And then you’re driving to your hometown state team. Hands down. That’s the story line right there regardless of what happens out there.

Buckner: If he had one showboat, salesman cell in his body, he would be Deion Sanders of the defensive line. Because he’d be on every billboard. He’d be on every commercial. But that just wasn’t him. He wanted his life off the field. He didn’t want all that other fanfare. He’s from a North Carolina high school. Went to a North Carolina university. And got drafted by (the Panthers). This whole state is supposed to be full of Julius Peppers. But that just wasn’t him. The man changed phone numbers more than anybody I’ve met before in my life. (Laughs.) He didn’t want none of that. Even when we were a Super Bowl. You know, when you go to the Super Bowl, they want the superstars. He didn’t want to do those. Because it was all about the team.

Witherspoon: It shows the level of respect he had for guys in the room. You could go to Pep the same way, and it was accountability put upon us all. ... Like, “Hey, y’all are doing your thing. I can do my thing, too. If I don’t do my thing, then you can’t do your thing, and it doesn’t work for any of us.” We’re all in this.

Wesley: I think that’s what made us a great team. When we went to the Super Bowl, you had Buck, and you had these veteran guys who was helping guide him and kind of molded him into what he was, who enabled him to play like he wanted to play.

Buckner: You had bigger players in bigger markets. You know, they wanted to do the press. But you weren’t going to turn on ESPN or NFL Network and see Pep doing an interview. You just weren’t going to see it. I mean, I was surprised when I saw him in the Nelly video. (Peppers appeared in the music video for the song “Hot in Here,” which came out in 2002.)

Wesley: (Laughs.) And he was just sitting in the back. Chillin’.

Buckner: We had to watch that video like eight times. He’s like, “Man, I’m in the video.” (Laughs.) We were like, “Nah.” But he was just standing in the back.

Julius Peppers loved history before he made it

It’s widely known for Peppers to be a bit media-shy and just generally quiet. But players picked up on certain aspects of his personality on team bus rides, at the Chick-Fil-A bags he brought into the locker room on occasion and … no ankle tape?

Rucker: He loves history. He knows his history, too. The Hall of Fame piece is interesting because, whether he was going to the Hall of Fame or not, he’s gonna know the history of the game. Guys would talk about Dream Team this-and-that, and he’d go back before that. I mean, whether it was politics or some type of movement, he’s a reader. Even though he’s not a speaker, he’s reading, he’s educating himself. And if you get enough time with him, you start to see that.

Buckner: It’s funny, you’d get on the bus, and he’d be sitting there reading a 1,000-page book. Book don’t even got a title, no picture on the cover, nothing. It’s just a book. He just sit there reading and reading and reading, and then two weeks later he’s got another book. When you talk about somebody being their own man, in their world of football (players), he was his own man. But he was a lion among lions. We all had something that allowed us to play this game at a high level, but he just had a bunch of what everybody had, all in one person. That’s why I started calling him “The Classified Mutant.” He got all of it. It’s him, Wolverine and the Phoenix. You know what I mean? He had everything.

Zietlow: Would you be bragging on him the same amount if he was sitting right here? And if so, how would he react?

Buckner: I don’t think it’s bragging. I think it’s just telling the truth. If he would be sitting here, he’d just be laughing.

Witherspoon: He’d be like, “Aw man stop.”

Rucker: “Aye chill chill chill.”

Zietlow: Did he ever have any injuries?

Rucker: Well first of all, he was the first dude who never taped the ankles. He had some short socks like this, ankle bone just showing like that, out there rolling. … If he could, he’d come out 10 minutes before the game and be rolling. That was just him, that was how he did it.

Wallace: Diet was terrible. (Laughs.)

Buckner: He never went to treatment. But our thing was hot tub, cold tub, contrast, massages. Not Pep. This man ate Chick-Fil-A, french fries, lemonade—

Rucker: Rolling.

Cementing a legacy in Carolina

Peppers left Carolina after the 2009 season and spent four seasons in Chicago and three in Green Bay before returning to the Panthers for his final two seasons in 2017 and 2018. Less than a decade later, he’s a Hall of Famer forever connected to the Panthers.

Buckner: Playing with him, you marvel at it. But when you sit down, and when you look back, you appreciate it even more. It’s like, “Damn, this is who I played next to?” Like I said, I’ve been blessed to play with some Hall of Famers, and he was, as far as D-Line wise, the best. And actually, I’ve played with Jerry Rice and Terrell Owens and Rod Woodson — and what he did was just as good as what they did. And he went out on his own terms. Jerry Rice played til he couldn’t play no more. Rod Woodson played til he couldn’t play no more. Legs gave out. Being a pass-rush specialist, the way the game is played now, he probably had three to four more years where he could be productive, if it was all about the money, the fame, or whatever — but it never was about that with him.

It was about having fun. The last time I saw him, he was in Green Bay, and I was in Arizona, and we played them in the playoffs. And I saw him after the game, and he said, “I’m still having fun. As long as I’m having fun, I’ll play.” And I remember, as soon as he retired, I remember telling my wife, “He probably ain’t having fun no more.”

Rucker: I think when you’re in it, you don’t necessarily look 20 years out for what something’s going to be. You’re just like, “Hey, we’re doing our thing.” You know something is special there because you don’t see it all the time. To then go through it now, and to look back, and be like, “That doesn’t come around very often.” When people start comparing you to someone, that’s when you know you’re doing something.

I remember when (Jadeveon) Clowney was coming out, they said he was the next Julius Peppers. This is the body size, he’s big, he could catch.

Williams: Mario Williams.

Rucker: Yep. That’s when you know you’re changing the game. That’s when you know you’re special. People talk about Kobe. LeBron. MJ. You’re setting the standard and the bar forever.