The super-talented Julius Peppers' run to the Hall of Fame: Bigger, faster and stronger (2024)

To watch Julius Peppers muscle his way to points and rebounds in the paint for North Carolina before compiling more sacks than all but three players in NFL history during a 17-year career was to imagine there was nothing Peppers couldn’t do.

But age catches up with everyone. And during a family vacation to Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks last summer, Peppers faced a man vs. mountain dilemma in the form of a 30- to 40-foot cliff, from which people were jumping into 50-degree lake water. Peppers deferred to his kids.

“I didn’t do that,” Peppers said, laughing. “I went back there. I just controlled the camera. I was on video (duty).”

Peppers had mostly been on the other side of the cameras from the time he was a teenager, with his athletic exploits captured and chronicled over the span of three decades and two sports. Peppers, who this weekend will become the first Carolina Panthers’ draft pick enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, is the only athlete to play in both a Final Four and a Super Bowl (former Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was on Syracuse’s 1996 Final Four team, but did not appear in a game).

Peppers probably could have gone a long way in baseball, too, had he been able to hit the fastball. He could hum it, though.

“My high school coach (at Southern Nash High in Bailey, N.C.) used to beg me to come out and try to play baseball. He wanted me to be a pitcher. And I could throw,” Peppers said. “But it just wasn’t really my thing. I wasn’t into it like that. I think back now, I’m like, I wish I would’ve did it.”

“I couldn’t hit the heat,” he added. “When we got to middle school and the kids started throwing harder, I had to quit because I was striking out every time.”

Like cliff diving, it was one of the few things that didn’t come naturally to Peppers, the 6-foot-7 defensive end whose long strides and fluid movements at times made it appear he didn’t go all-out every play. That was really the only criticism of Peppers before the 2002 NFL Draft, in which the Panthers held the No. 2 pick.

And while some in the media thought the Panthers should take Oregon quarterback Joey Harrington, the Panthers went with Peppers. All he did was rack up nine Pro Bowl berths and 159 1/2 sacks, including 97 during two stints in Carolina. When he retired after the 2018 season at the age of 39, he trailed only Bruce Smith, Reggie White and Kevin Greene on the all-time sacks list. All three are in the Hall of Fame.

Now Peppers will join them in Canton despite — by his own admission — the absence of a signature pass move. Peppers has been talking to former Colts pass rusher Dwight Freeney a lot since the February announcement that both would be part of this year’s Hall of Fame class.

“I always compliment him on his spin move. When you think Dwight Freeney, that’s what you think about,” Peppers said. “I never really had a signature thing. It was a combination of things. It was versatility. It was putting different moves together, watching Reggie — taking the hump (move) from Reggie. Taking the speed from Jevon Kearse. Doing the long arm from like a Kevin Carter. It was a combination of all these different, great pass rushers and trying to put it together to make it my own.”

Clearly, Peppers was successful in doing so.

Peppers is a member of the NFL’s all-decade teams from the 2000s and 2010s, and holds the Panthers’ team records for sacks, forced fumbles (34) and blocked field goals (eight). But before he was one the best defensive players on the planet, he was one of the best offensive players in eastern North Carolina.

“I didn’t really play defense in high school. I was more of an offensive player,” Peppers said this summer during a 25-minute Zoom interview. “I had a few sacks in high school but that really wasn’t something that was highlighted because I was an offensive player.”

Peppers can recall his first touchdown, which came on a 70-yard kickoff return in a middle school game as a seventh-grader. After eluding a few tackles, there was only one Phillips Middle School player between Peppers and the end zone.

“And to be honest, I think probably the kid was scared to come try to hit me because I didn’t really have to avoid (anyone). I took it, made like one cut to the sideline and just ran up the sideline,” Peppers said. “I wasn’t looking back to see nothing. I don’t know if the kid was scared to come try to hit or what. But it was pretty easy.”

Peppers had a knack for making anything involving a ball look easy.

The North Carolina male athlete of the year as a senior at Southern Nash in 1998, Peppers was recruited by several Division I schools for basketball and won a national AAU title with UNC teammates Brendan Haywood and Kris Lang.

At UNC, Peppers would go right from Kenan Stadium at the end of football season to the Dean Dome, where he was one of the first players off the bench for the Tar Heels’ 2000 Final Four team. The following year, Peppers pumped in a career-high 21 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in a loss to Penn State in the second round of the NCAA in what turned out to be his final basketball game.

He played only football as a junior, leaving Chapel Hill ranked second on the all-time sacks lists and winning two of the three national defensive player of the year awards in 2001. Still, there were questions about Peppers’ effort level.

Mike Trgovac, the defensive line coach on John Fox’s inaugural staff in 2002, was tasked with looking at Peppers’ tape to see if he dogged it.

“What Fox told me to do, he said, ‘Hey, we gotta make sure on this.’ Because you heard all the rumors about he doesn’t play hard all the time and all this. I watched every one of his games. I watched most of his games from the year before,” Trgovac said. “I kept telling people, ‘It’s not that he takes plays off. It’s just he’s so damn smooth, he doesn’t look like he’s running hard every play. But he is.’”

The expansion Houston Texans had announced before the draft they were taking Fresno State quarterback David Carr with the No. 1 pick. While some observers also wanted the Panthers to draft a QB, Fox said “no one in the building” was high on Harrington, who went third to Detroit, played seven seasons with three teams and was 26-50 as a starter.

Before the Panthers were on the clock, Trgovac said owner Jerry Richardson asked him if he was sure about Peppers. “And I said, ‘Mr. Richardson, I’m positive,’” Trgovac recalled.

Fox was convinced Peppers was the choice after watching his tape — in both sports.

“I always looked at smart and tough. And I judge toughness a lot of different ways,” Fox said. “He was where he was as a junior (despite) never participating in spring football. He was a starter on a Final Four basketball team. You can’t not be mentally tough going back-to-back sports at a major college.”

Who thinks they can guard this guy 👀@juliuspeppers_ pic.twitter.com/VhW3PMFZqu

— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) March 21, 2024

Peppers didn’t have a sack in his first NFL game, but he did tip a Chris Redman pass that Dan Morgan intercepted to preserve a 10-7 win over Baltimore. The following week, Peppers sacked Lions quarterback Mike McMahon three times to jump-start a 12-sacks-in-12-games season that culminated with Peppers winning the Defensive Rookie of the Year award.

Trgovac, who coached Peppers in Carolina and Green Bay, said Peppers always was open to trying a new pass-rushing technique. He may have lacked a trademark move, but he had a lot to choose from.

“He could kind of feel what was working and not working that day, and change it up. … Reggie White, it’s very hard to stop that hump move. Bruce Smith was very hard (to stop with) what I called the wiper move,” Trgovac said. “But sometimes if that move’s not working, a lot of guys don’t have a comeback. And he always had something where he could come back to it. He had the ability to beat you athletically and then beat you with a little bit of power, too.”

Peppers wasn’t around much during the offseason, preferring to train on his own in Miami. But other than 2007, when Peppers picked up an illness traveling in Europe that summer, he generally showed up to camp in great shape. Peppers was always out front when the offensive and defensive linemen would run gassers (across the field and back), and sometimes would jump in with the skill-position group, too.

“I would always try to challenge him. And I could never beat him. But I had to at least let him know that I’m in really good shape,” said Jordan Gross, the longtime left tackle who played with Peppers for seven seasons. “Like I could keep up. I couldn’t do that if we were jumping high or throwing something far. I’m being self-deprecating a little bit. It’s not like he just beat me up left and right. But he was definitely a whole other class.”

While Peppers is best known for his pass rush, he could impress in other ways. The Jimmy Clausen pass that Peppers batted and intercepted in his 2010 return to Bank of America Stadium, where he shushed the home crowd that had booed him. The 2005 divisional playoff game at Chicago when Peppers ran across the field and dived at running back Thomas Jones, who fumbled through the end zone to give the Panthers the ball.

Peppers separated his labrum on the play and wore a harness the next week in the NFC Championship Game at Seattle. He let the shoulder heal on its own during the offseason. But over the years the shoulder continued to bother Peppers, who finally had surgery in 2018 before his final season.

.@juliuspeppers_ 150th career sack is also a forced fumble 😤😤😤 pic.twitter.com/9luWsBG3aa

— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) October 13, 2017

Peppers had racked up 11 sacks at the age of 37 in 2017, which remains the Panthers’ last playoff appearance. But he couldn’t train as much after the shoulder surgery, and wasn’t as productive in 2018. Still, he went into the final game at New Orleans needing 1 1/2 sacks to tie Greene for third place on the all-time list.

Peppers picked up one late in the first half when he took down Teddy Bridgewater for a six-yard loss. He recalls having another shot at Bridgewater, but the Saints’ quarterback dipped under Peppers to elude him. Peppers had already decided 2018 would be his final season. And while he never focused on individual accomplishments, he concedes finishing in the top three in sacks was on his mind.

“I was trying to get that because I knew I wasn’t gonna come back and play a whole season just to get a half a sack,” he said. “I was like, ‘Look, if you’re gonna stay true to yourself, you don’t chase stats. You don’t chase records and stuff like that.’”

So a month after the season ended, Peppers announced his retirement, starting the five-year clock for Canton.

“I was still good. I could’ve kept playing. I think I had at least another one or two good seasons. I could’ve probably played another three or four just hanging on,” Peppers said. “But I never visualized myself hanging around just to hang around, and play just to play. If I couldn’t be an impact player or have a big impact on the games, I didn’t want to be just on a team.”

Peppers was the single-season sacks leader at least once for all three teams he played for, and had 10 seasons of 10 or more sacks, tied for third-most when he retired. He played in one Super Bowl during his second season with the Panthers, and nearly made it back with the Packers in 2014.

In the NFC title game that season, Peppers led a hit parade on Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, who was sacked five times and threw four interceptions. But Seattle recovered a late onside kick to pull out a 28-22 win and secure its second consecutive Super Bowl berth.

Trgovac was devastated for Peppers afterward.

“That game hurt me a lot, especially how it ended,” he said. “If you love a guy like you love Julius, you love everything about his game … you want (that for) certain guys you know aren’t gonna play that much longer. It’s hard to get back to a Super Bowl.”

A few years earlier when Peppers was with Chicago, the Bears came to Denver in December when Fox was the Broncos coach. After Tim Tebow brought the Broncos back from a 10-point, fourth-quarter deficit for an overtime win, Fox remembers looking up from his locker stall to see Peppers.

“They lost a heartbreaking game. It was my first year. He came over to my locker room after the game and said, ‘Coach, you could just feel (momentum) turn,’” Fox said.

“It was a class act. I mean, who does that? I don’t know that I’ve ever had a player do that. I’ve had players come and say hi to me after the game on the field. But he actually came over to our locker room and came in my head coach’s locker room to say hi and congratulate us.”

Fox, Trgovac and a number of Peppers’ former coaches and teammates will be in Canton to see Peppers put on a very large gold jacket. Gross will be watching from Idaho, where he’s the head coach at his old high school. Gross has a lot of memories of facing Peppers in practice.

When Peppers returned to Carolina in 2017 after stops in Chicago and Green Bay, Panthers offensive tackle Daryl Williams called Gross for tips on how to block Peppers. Gross wasn’t much help.

“It was like, ‘There’s not like one move that you’ve gotta master. Or if I make him play this way, then I have an advantage,’” Gross said. “Because he just was stronger than all of us. And bigger than most of us. And faster than all of us.”

(Top photo: Streeter Lecka / Getty Images)