It actually got Peppers into the Hall of Fame quickly, as a first-round pick. As is well documented, this inauguration took place last August. Now, on Sunday, the Panthers will award Pep a Hall of Fame honor with a Ring of Excellence ceremony in Charlotte.

The halftime ceremony will remember that Peppers is the first player drafted by the Panthers to enter the Hall, becoming the 90th Hall of Famer on the first ballot of the 378-member Hall.

It also gives defensive players on this 2024 Panthers team, like Thurman, a chance to play in front of the luminary.

“One of the all-time greats, not just in the Panthers organization, but just, you know, a great player overall. So, you know, just having him around and just picking his brain,” Thurman said.

“Man, that’s a legend,” LaBryan Ray said at the thought of playing in front of the Peppers against the Bengals.

The idea led to a conversation about what it would have been like to actually play with the Hall of Famer.

“That was probably nice. Nice and annoying,” joked Claudin Cherelus. “You know he’s making the play (instead of you), but you know you’re covering.”

Someone who knows what it’s like to play for the Peppers is linebacker Shaq Thompson, who played for Pep in 2017 and 2018 when he returned to Charlotte to finish his career with the team that drafted him No. 2 overall in 2002 had been drafted overall. With a notoriously quiet leader back in the building over the weekend, Thompson remembers a few things he learned from Pep and what his current teammates can take away as well.