We’re counting down the days until the Panthers open up the 2025 season!
There are 44 days until the first game of the 2025 season for the Carolina Panthers. Today, we’re taking a closer look at the the player currently wearing the No. 44 jersey — longsnapper JJ Jansen.
Jansen spent his rookie season, 2008, with the Green Bay Packers before being traded to the Panthers for a conditional draft pick. He has since earned the record for most games played for the franchise (260), which he claimed from kicker Jon Kasay in 2022.
Since claiming that record, Jansen has rolled from year to year on one-year contracts without missing a game. His durability has seen him on the field for every game the Carolina Panthers have played since the 2009. Meaning he has had a front row seat to Panthers history from the end of the Jon Fox era through the David Tepper speed dating hires.
Jansen, at 39, is the oldest player on the roster by two years. He’ll turn 40 before the Super Bowl this season, but, even in the unlikely event the Panthers make it that far, he won’t by the oldest player to take the field for the Panthers at 40. He still has to play for four more years to tie quarterback Vinny Testaverde who was 44 when he briefly played for the Panthers in the season before Jansen entered the league.