Ryan Kalil doesn’t remember the specific season, only that Luke Kuechly already had gone to several Pro Bowls and established himself as one of the NFL’s best players. It was a late Friday afternoon and most of their Carolina Panthers’ teammates had cleared out of Bank of America Stadium ahead of their Sunday game.
The only reason Kalil was there was to receive treatment for an injury. He texted Kuechly to see if he wanted to hang out that night. Kuechly texted back saying he was in the linebackers room.
“So I went in there, and he was there by himself watching film. I tried to get him to make plans with me. He said, ‘Maybe, we’ll see. I’ve still got a lot of film I’ve gotta watch,’” said Kalil, the former Panthers center. “I remember thinking to myself in that moment, this is why this guy’s gonna be a first-ballot Hall of Famer.”
Kalil was only off by a year.
Kuechly, the All-Pro linebacker with the boy-next-door appeal, is headed to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his second year of eligibility. He almost certainly would have been a first-ballot inductee had the Hall not strengthened its rules last year making it more difficult to get in.
Kuechly will be enshrined in Canton this summer along with four other inductees: Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, Adam Vinatieri and Roger Craig. The class was announced Thursday night during the NFL Honors program in San Francisco.
Kuechly was impressed with what’s become one of the coolest traditions of NFL Honors — the other Hall of Famers in the room joining the new inductees on the stage. Among those greeting him was former Cincinnati Bengals offensive tackle Anthony Munoz, who played his entire 13-year career in Kuechly’s hometown.
“When those guys come up on stage at the end is really cool. My first NFL Honors was 2012 (when he won Defensive Rookie) and you get to see that class come out and how cool that was,” Kuechly said. “And then all the Hall of Famers came up (Thursday). Barry Sanders came up. Anthony Munoz — I grew up in Cincinnati. And to see those guys come up and say welcome is a really cool thing.
“You look around in that crowd and you see guys that you played with, guys that you played against. You see coaches, and you’re just so fortunate to have been part of good teams, great organizations and I think that’s a big part of why we’re all up here, is we had great teammates.”
Kuechly becomes the seventh player or executive with Panthers’ ties to make the Hall, but the first who spent his entire career with the organization — a career that unfortunately ended too soon after eight seasons.
Kuechly was 28 when he announced his retirement in January 2020. He’ll be 35 when he travels to his home-state of Ohio this summer for his enshrinement, making him the second-youngest Hall of Famer ever behind only Gale Sayers (34), according to Darin Gantt of Panthers.com.
Fighting back tears during an emotional retirement announcement, Kuechly voiced concerns that a series of concussions and other health-related issues had diminished his abilities. “There’s only one way to play this game since I was a little kid — play fast and play physical and play strong,” Kuechly said. “And at this point I don’t know if I am able to do that anymore.”
It’s worth noting that Kuechly was coming off a 2019 season in which he had made his seventh consecutive Pro Bowl, been named a second-team All-Pro and finished fifth in the league with 144 tackles.
“Luke has a standard for his own play that was far in excess of what we expected from him,” said longtime Panthers long snapper J.J. Jansen, who was among the teammates who joined Kuechly in San Francisco on Thursday.
Kuechly’s career might not have spanned as many seasons as Hall of Fame linebackers such as Ray Lewis, Zach Thomas or Sam Mills, who finished his 12-year career with the Panthers and was the inspiration for the team’s “Keep Pounding” motto.
But he was the picture of production after the Panthers drafted him ninth in 2012, a year after they took Cam Newton No. 1. Kuechly and Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor are the only players in NFL history to win Rookie of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year awards in successive seasons.
Luke Kuechly twice led the NFL in tackles and intercepted 18 passes in his eight NFL seasons. (Bob Donnan / Imagn Images)
Kuechly’s other accomplishments included:
• A spot on the NFL’s All-Decade team for the 2010s.
• An NFL single-game record of 24 tackles (equaling David Harris’ mark) in 2013 in a 17-13 win over the New Orleans Saints that clinched a Carolina playoff berth.
• The league leader in tackles as a rookie and again in 2014.
• 100-tackle seasons every year he played and 18 career interceptions. That doesn’t include his three playoff interceptions, including two he returned for touchdowns during the Panthers’ run to Super Bowl 50.
• Seven All-Pro selections, including five on the first team.
By making All-Pro in seven of eight seasons, Kuechly has the third-highest percentage (87.5) of All-Pros in NFL history, behind only Hall of Fame running backs Barry Sanders (100 percent) and Jim Brown (88.9), according to Panthers.com.
As for anyone questioning Kuechly’s somewhat truncated career, Jansen said playing longer would have only enhanced Kuechly’s Hall of Fame credentials.
“Sometimes I think we get this confused. There are players that had unbelievable periods of time in short careers. Sterling Sharpe. Terrell Davis. And we extrapolate: What would their career have looked like had they had more time? And there’s a little bit of, let’s extrapolate and let’s give them the benefit of the doubt,” Jansen said.
“Luke met the full standard for all of that without requiring the extra years. … To extrapolate would make him even more of a Hall of Famer.”
Kuechly’s physical gifts were matched by his ability to predict the opponent’s plays, the result of his legendary film sessions during the week and his recognition and recall of an offense’s tendencies on Sundays.
Kuechly wouldn’t just stay at the stadium late in the day, as Kalil witnessed on that Friday night. He’d also arrive early.
Captain Munnerlyn, a defensive back who had two stints in Carolina, said he often tried to beat Kuechly into the building in the morning. He was never successful. But Munnerlyn was thankful for Kuechly’s obsession with film work because he’d always pass along what he’d learned to his teammates.
“He kind of spoiled me a little bit because when I noticed all the stuff he did, I wouldn’t say I backed up a little bit. But I did (think), I know Luke is gonna get me right,” Munnerlyn said. “And when I left and went to Minnesota (in 2014), I didn’t have a Luke Kuechly.”
Everyone who played with Kuechly — and many who played against him — has stories of how Kuechly always seemed to know what was coming. So it was fitting that David and Nicole Tepper referenced it in their statement following Thursday’s announcement:
“The rare combination of passion, preparation and ability to identify opponents’ plays truly set Luke apart. A career Carolina Panther, Luke was the consummate teammate and remains a great ambassador for both the game and the Carolinas. Luke is rightfully being recognized with the game’s greatest players and we join Panthers fans everywhere in congratulating him for being selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2026.”
When new Buffalo Bills coach Joe Brady was the Panthers’ offensive coordinator, he told Jansen that, during his time in New Orleans, the Saints’ staff would unsuccessfully try to fool Kuechly by having Brees change up his hand signals to pre-snap calls.
“And I think late in Luke’s career, maybe ’18 or ’19, Joe Brady was telling me they finally had some verbiage that finally tricked him, that he didn’t crack the code in the middle of the game,” Jansen said. “And it was like that became the gold standard in New Orleans. If Kuechly can’t crack the code, this is good. Because every other game — you’ve seen the NFL Films — he just knew how to decipher things.
“It wasn’t just the play on the field. It was all the other things. It was the game within the game. It’s walking up to the line and listening to Drew make the checks and figure it out from stuff that happened earlier in the game.”
During the 2018 game at Philadelphia when the Panthers erased a 17-point, fourth-quarter deficit to beat the Eagles, Kuechly told Munnerlyn a screen was coming, but Munnerlyn didn’t believe him. Luckily, Kuechly made the play.
“He told me, ‘Cap, I just told you screen. Trust me, baby. Trust me,’” Munnerlyn recalled. “The next time he said, ‘Cap, it’s the same formation. It’s going the opposite way. It’s coming to you. Screen, screen, screen.’ I shoot the gap, I make the play and I looked at him and said, ‘This is f–––ing crazy.’”
Expect to hear a lot of those stories in the months leading up to Kuechly’s enshrinement week as teammates and coaches pay tribute to a Panthers icon who understood better than anyone the value of preparation.
Kalil knew that before that Friday evening all those years ago when he found Kuechly holed up in the linebackers room looking for any edge he could get.
“We didn’t end up going that night because he stayed late,” Kalil said. “I think he did a ton of ice-tubbing and watched a ton more game tape.”
Same as it ever was.