Here are 11 players in Super Bowl LVIII with ties to NC, SC and the Carolina Panthers

We all know the Carolina Panthers aren’t playing on Super Bowl Sunday, but that doesn’t mean the franchise — as well as the states of North Carolina and South Carolina — won’t be well-represented on the NFL’s biggest stage.

Here’s a look at 11 players (and a few others) who will play prominent roles in Super Bowl LVIII at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, where the Kansas City Chiefs will take on the San Francisco 49ers at 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

Christian McCaffrey

The season McCaffrey is having probably fills Panthers fans with joy and pain all at once. The prolific running back for San Francisco enters the Super Bowl as one of the few candidates who put up a fight with Lamar Jackson for league MVP, accruing 1,459 rushing yards and 14 rushing touchdowns plus 564 receiving yards and seven receiving touchdowns. McCaffrey was traded to the 49ers in 2022 and has reemerged, in many ways, as the McCaffrey of old — the one who’d recorded 1,000 rushing yards and 1,000 receiving yards in 2019 before injuries hindered his five-season career in Carolina.

Sam Darnold

Darnold is in a QB2 role for the surging Brock Purdy-led 49ers offense. He started in Carolina for two seasons (2021-22) before agreeing to a one-year deal with San Francisco. He helped rebuild his career at the end of his tenure as a Panther, when he helped lead a team with an interim head coach to a 4-2 finish, throwing for 1,143 yards and seven touchdowns in that six-game stretch.

Ray-Ray McCloud III

McCloud has played for four different teams in his six seasons in the NFL. And the Panthers, in 2019, were one of them. More significantly, the 49ers’ receiver/returner played three seasons at Clemson before being drafted in the sixth round of the 2018 NFL Draft. He’s notched 12 catches for 135 yards this season.

Deebo Samuel

Samuel is one of the most elusive and dynamic players in the NFL. The San Francisco star is a University of South Carolina graduate and Inman, S.C., native. He enters the Super Bowl with some gaudy stats: 1,117 yards from scrimmage and 12 total touchdowns (seven receiving, five rushing).

Javon Hargrave

The 49ers’ defensive tackle has notched 44 tackles and seven sacks in his eighth NFL season and first in San Francisco. Hargrave grew up in Salisbury, N.C., and attended South Carolina State for college. The Steelers selected him to the third round of the 2016 NFL Draft.

Javon Kinlaw

Kinlaw was drafted by the 49ers in 2020 and has been with them since. The Charleston native and South Carolina Gamecock great has turned in a solid, healthy season in 2023, one that has seen the defensive tackle notch 23 tackles and 3.5 sacks.

Harrison Butker

Butker has played all seven of his NFL seasons with the Chiefs. But the seventh-round pick back in 2017 was actually originally selected by the Carolina Panthers before being acquired by Kansas City. Since joining the Andy Reid-led dynasty, the dead-eye kicker has accumulated the third-most all-time points in franchise history and is one of the best kickers in the NFL. This season? He’s 33-of-35 on field goals and hasn’t yet missed an extra point attempt.

Noah Gray

Travis Kelce gets a lot of attention, and deservedly so. But Gray is an important tight end for the Chiefs, too, catching 28 passes for 305 yards and two touchdowns this season. Gray graduated from Duke in 2020.

Justyn Ross

Ross has played in 10 games this NFL season and has notched six receptions on a 11 targets for 53 yards. The former Clemson star signed as an undrafted free agent with the Chiefs in 2022 and was placed on injured reserve due to an offseason foot injury that year.

Joshua Williams

Williams, in his second NFL season, has notched 18 tackles and five pass deflections for the Chiefs this season. He also played for Kansas City in the team’s Super Bowl run last year. The Fayetteville native graduated from Fayetteville State and was subsequently drafted in the fourth round of the 2022 draft.

Joe Thuney

The 31-year-old Chiefs’ offensive lineman is a two-time Pro Bowler. He’s missed a few games this year due to injury, including the AFC Championship game because of an injured pectoral muscle. The guard graduated from N.C. State and was taken by the New England Patriots in the third round of the 2016 draft.

Other connections to Super Bowl LVIII

▪ Brandt Tilis, current Panthers VP of football operations. The hiring of Tilis was announced last week and arrived to high expectations, considering his salary and cap negotiation prowess as a Kansas City Chiefs executive. A lot of the building of the Chiefs’ dynasty was spearheaded by him, which included locking down quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

▪ Steve Wilks, former Panthers defensive coordinator. The 49ers’ defensive coordinator has all sorts of ties to North Carolina. Among the many: He’s from Charlotte. He graduated from West Charlotte High School in 1987 before playing college football at App State and beginning his coaching career at Johnson C. Smith in the 1990s. He was also the DC for the Panthers on that 2015 team that reached the Super Bowl but didn’t win it — as well as for the 2022 team. He was named interim head coach after Matt Rhule was fired early on in 2022 but was ultimately passed over for the head job in favor of Frank Reich. He found a home in San Francisco thereafter.