There’s a story Luke Kuechly likes to tell about his rookie year in the NFL.
It begins before his first game with the Carolina Panthers, back when he was a fresh-faced 21-year-old out of Boston College sitting quietly in meeting rooms, observing, learning.
In a few years, Kuechly would go on to become one of the greatest linebackers in the game of football’s history. He’d earn seven Pro Bowls, five All Pro selections and one Defensive Player of the Year award in a career that ended when he was merely 28 years old. But in this story, all Kuechly had to his professional name was being a No. 9 overall draft pick — he had a lot to prove and very little to be sure of.
“You walk into this room,” Kuechly said, “and there’s (Jon Beason) who’d just come back from an Achilles injury, (Thomas Davis) is coming back from his knee and then James (Anderson), who had a great year. They’re all trying to figure it out. Because most of the time, there are only two guys on the field. How do we all fit?”
Kuechly had a simple idea, one that centered around being “a good young guy.” Showing up on time. Asking good questions. Being quiet. And most importantly: “When you’re in the game, don’t mess up the older guys.”
He told this story in Uptown Charlotte on Thursday during a luncheon put on by the Charlotte Touchdown Club. He’d go on to tell the rest of it, how an injury to Beason moved him over to the middle linebacker role in Ron Rivera’s 4-3 system, how his slow start turned into a strong finish that led to Defensive Rookie of the Year honors.
“When you do all that, and then when you start making big plays, the guys start (embracing you),” Kuechly said. “That was my thought process as a rookie.”
It’s a simple story with sage advice.
And it’s a story at least one current Carolina Panthers linebacker could probably relate to.
Trevin Wallace, another Carolina Panthers linebacker who the team has invested hopes and a draft pick into, told The Charlotte Observer that he sought out a lot of mentors this spring and summer. Shaq Thompson is one of them. So is general manager Dan Morgan, one of the best inside linebackers in Panthers franchise history in his own right.
Wallace has reached out to Kuechly, too.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist’s day job is still around the Panthers. He joined the Panthers Radio Network in 2022. And he’s taken a liking to Wallace.
The two are ostensibly different. Wallace is a goat-owning, hog-hunting, anime-loving, fast-talking personification of energy. As a rookie, in 13 games played and only eight starts, he notched 64 tackles and one sack and played well with the green dot — as the defensive play-caller — when required. Kuechly is naturally a bit more cerebral, a bit more reserved, yet very much the imposer on the field.
But what Wallace and Kuechly had in common as rookies — and what Wallace could use as he enters a consequential Year 2 in 2025 — is to be ready when their names were called. Kuechly did that after an injury to Beason moved him to the Mike linebacker role that he’d never thereafter relinquish. Wallace, similarly, was plucked from the bench after a season-ending injury to Thompson, and his responsibilities skyrocketed further earlier this training camp, after learning that his veteran, Josey Jewell, was released by the team as he continues his recovery from a concussion he sustained in December.
It all required being prepared, doing the little things well so the big moments aren’t as daunting.
So, Luke, have you opened up about your rookie year to Wallace?
No, he said.
“When you help guys, you just worry about, ‘What should you do to help them?’” Kuechly told The Charlotte Observer in an interview after his luncheon talk. “I think the less you talk about yourself, the more they get out of it. So for me, with Trevin, it’s about: What is going to help Trevin be the best player he can be?
“To me, he’s got everything. He loves the game of football. He’s big. He’s physical. He can run. He wants to learn. He has a great feel for the game. And then you just try to help those guys out and figure out, ‘What do they want to work on and what do they want to get better at?’ And then try to find ways to help them with that.”
Does he at least remind you of yourself in those early years?
Kuechly smiled and deflected.
“Trevin is a way better athlete than I am.”
This wasn’t the only story Kuechly told in front of a few-hundred people on Thursday at the Sheraton Hotel in Uptown. A few others stood out:
— Growing up, Kuechly “didn’t like getting hit.” That’s right. One of the toughest players in the NFL who played one of the toughest positions in all of sports admitted on Thursday that when he first picked up football, his youth coaches insisted he should play quarterback or running back, but he declined for a simple reason that amused the crowd.
“When you run the ball, there are 11 dudes trying to kill you,” Kuechly said. “When you play defense, and you play linebacker, there’s one guy assigned to block you. And that’s it. So would you rather try to get hit by 11 dudes, or just play linebacker?”
— Kuechly insisted preseason games were more “stressful” than the regular season. True story. His words: “In preseason, you’re physically tired from camp, but you’re mentally tired. That’s the stressful part of training camp. It’s the mental fatigue. So you don’t prepare as much for a game. And those games, in my opinion, were always more stressful than regular season games because I never felt like I had as good a feel. I didn’t prepare as much. Because you have 12 snaps. …”
“In preseason games, the mentality was, I better just try to figure it out on the fly, versus the regular season, where you prepared, you studied, you go through situations in your mind. And when that situation comes to the game, you’ll say, ‘He might be a better athlete than me, but I have a plan for how I’m going to attack it.’”
— He was asked for his “welcome to the NFL moment” (the moment he realized that this game was a different beast), and he recalled one immediately involving a Bucs safety laying him out on special teams. When asked if he levied a hit that he thinks rings on in other players’ memories, he deflected and smoothly spent three minutes talking about how strong his linebacker-mate Thomas Davis was. The well of Davis stories never ran dry.
One that stood out was when the Panthers faced off against the Philadelphia Eagles in 2015, pitting Carolina’s linebackers against physical running backs Ryan Matthews and DeMarco Murray. It started on a first-quarter run when Murray was left in space on the right side, and had a 1-on-1 with Davis.
“You can see when guys are going to try you,” Kuechly said. “When they look you up, it’s on. They looked TD up, and they ran, and one guy won. And it wasn’t DeMarco.”
The crowd laughed.
“They ran the same play, they ran on the other side,” Kuechly said. “This time was Ryan Matthews. It was on their sideline. They tried to put his shoulder down on Thomas. He hits these guys so hard, they like crumple. … They both tried it. And for me watching, it was, ‘Hey you picked the wrong guy. You should’ve tried that with me. You shouldn’t have tried that with Thomas.’”
