Exclusive: Panthers legend Thomas Davis on Cam, Luke, Bryce and that ‘Peyton call’

Thomas Davis is one of the most popular players in Carolina Panthers history, as well as one of the toughest. Plus, he remembers everything. As the Panthers begin another season, he’s the perfect former player to catch up with as the star of this week’s “Sports Legends of the Carolinas.”

The Panthers’ all-time leading tackler, Davis is also the only player in NFL history to successfully come back from three ACL surgeries on the very same knee. Not only that, but he also played in Super Bowl 50 following the 2015 season after breaking his arm only two weeks before.

Now age 40, Davis was the Panthers’ first-round draft choice in 2005 and played the next 14 years for the Panthers as a heat-seeking linebacker who was a community servant off the field. What he believes is his highest individual honor came in 2014, when he was named the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year for his community service.

Remarkably, Davis had his best seasons in the NFL late in his career, with all three of his Pro Bowl appearances coming after his three ACL surgeries. He played elsewhere in 2019 and 2020 before returning to Charlotte, where he and his family have long kept their permanent home. Davis signed a one-day contract in March 2021 so he could retire as a Panther. He now owns and operates a sports bar and lounge called TEN58 in uptown Charlotte.

This interview is edited for clarity and brevity. For a much fuller version, check out the “Sports Legends of the Carolinas” podcast.

Scott Fowler: What do you miss about playing, and what do you not miss about playing?

Thomas Davis: I would really say — and I tell people this — the only thing I really miss is getting paid every week. (Laughs).

And I say that because I feel like I gave everything I had to the game while I was playing. You know, that’s what I wanted to do when I was playing. I wanted to walk away from the game with no regrets. Now I have the opportunity to sit back and watch my son and my nephews go through the (recruiting) process. They’re in high school right now. I get to take the time to just really enjoy the process that they’re going through, and for me that’s special.

SF: What sort of fan are you as a former player at your nephews’ and son’s high school games? Calm, cool and collected?

TD: Nothing has ever been calm, cool and collected about me. When it comes to the game of football, I’m one of those fanatics. I love every aspect of the game of football, whether it is on the high school, college or NFL level.

SF: I saw you at Panthers training camp: Tell me what you think about this year’s Panthers team as it prepares to open the 2023 season?

TD: I think they just need to be consistent. I feel like this roster is equipped to get the job done. I love what Coach (Frank) Reich has done with his staff — I feel like it’s a rock-star coaching staff. It’s just about these players making a commitment to maximize their ability every single day.

And that starts by practicing a certain way. You have to make practice harder than Sundays. You find somebody that pushes you every single day to be the best version of yourself.

SF: Cam Newton was one of those guys for you, right? You and Cam used to jaw at each other a lot in practice.

TD: Yes. It kind of started with the Georgia-Auburn rivalry, with him being an Auburn Tiger and me being a Georgia Bulldog. And it just kind of translated over onto the field. Both of us were extremely competitive. We were guys that never wanted to lose a single rep at any point.

And if I won a rep against him or if we want to rep against them, I’m letting him hear about it. I’m letting him know every single time and vice versa.

And I think Coach (Ron) Rivera was the perfect coach for us at that time because he understood that. He saw what that brought out of Cam, and he saw what that brought out of me, so he would encourage it. Coach (Sean) McDermott (then the Panthers’ defensive coordinator, now Buffalo’s head coach) wasn’t a huge fan of it.

Coach McDermott would kind of shush me. And Coach Rivera would egg me on like, “Hey, don’t get quiet. Let’s go!”

SF: The last few Panthers teams could have used some more of that, I think. Do you?

TD: No question. Burns (Brian Burns, the Panthers’ best pass rusher) likes to talk. I’ve been trying to get Shaq (Thompson) to step up and find somebody over there to do it with but it seems like Duce (Staley, the running backs coach) has been the only guy that’s been talking back to the defense.

SF: For Bryce Young, that’s not his gig, I guess?

TD: Nah, I can’t see that being Bryce’s thing — yet. He has it in him, though. He has some fire. I got to witness it when I went to practice and I saw Jaycee (Horn) blitz and he told Bryce: “Hey, I would have lit you up on that play.” And Bryce didn’t just sit back in and accept it. He was like: “Well do it then! If you were going to do it, then do it.”

Knowing full well, of course, that you can’t touch the quarterback.

SF: You grew up in Shellman, Georgia. Who raised you?

TD: It was a community raising, seems like, but mostly it was my grandmother and my mom.

SF: You told me one time in a previous interview that there were at least two Christmases where you literally didn’t receive a present.

TD: We were just growing up in poverty, with a mom who struggled to raise two kids. We grew up with government assistance and there were times where you just couldn’t make ends meet. And you don’t fully understand those things when you’re a young kid. You feel like Santa is going to provide everybody with a gift.

And when you wake up and you don’t have anything you start to feel like, “OK, I wasn’t good enough this year. I was a bad kid. I didn’t do the things that I needed to do to receive a gift.”

And that was part of the reason why I started my foundation (the Thomas Davis Defending Dreams Foundation), because I knew that there were a lot of moms a lot of kids that were going through some of the same struggles, there were a lot of kids that were waking up on Christmas Day, feeling the same way that I felt like, that they weren’t good enough, that they didn’t get the job done.

And I don’t want kids to have to go through that experience.

SF: You were drafted 14th overall in 2005, and the knee injuries came in 2009, 2010 and 2011. How close were you to retiring after the third one?

TD: After that third one happened, I literally walked off the field thinking that that would be my last time ever in the NFL uniform, because I had been in the league long enough to know the business side of this game. And you just don’t get those opportunities. You don’t find teams who are willing to stick with guys through what I had just gone through…. But (Panthers owner Jerry) Richardson said that if I was willing to put myself through it, he was willing to give me another shot.

He believed in me that much…. And I literally had the best years of my career after going through all of that hardship.

Luke Kuechly draft? Not excited

SF: When the Panthers drafted Luke Kuechly, you weren’t exactly thrilled about it at first, were you?

TD: No, I wasn’t. This was 2012. I was invited to the Panthers’ draft party and I’m excited you know. We’re out here on this field with the fans and then:

“The Carolina Panthers select linebacker Luke Kuechly from Boston College.”

And I’m like ... What?!

Wait, we’ve got Jon Beason, a Pro Bowl middle linebacker. We’ve got James Anderson, who they had just signed to a contract. And we got a player who has torn his ACL three times. And now we’ve got a first-round rookie. I was just so hurt and disappointed because in my mind, at the time, I’m the odd man out.

But I went back to my Georgia days, where I had to prove all over again that I belonged. It was: “I’m going to show these guys that went out and drafted this kid in the first round, that they’re not getting rid of me that easy.”

Later, Coach Rivera made the transition to put Luke in the middle and they ended up trading Beason away. We were devastated to lose Beason, but I never really understood until then how magical it would become with me working alongside Luke.

SF: In the 2015 postseason, you played in the Super Bowl with a broken arm that had been fixed surgically only 13 days before. How?

TD: The doctor said it was broken in a place where they could do surgery and potentially play in the Super Bowl, that it would be a matter of pain tolerance. I said: “Man, are you crazy? I’m not missing the Super Bowl.”

I remember falling asleep with Kelly, my wife, being right there before I went into surgery. And I remember waking up to Luke standing over me, and he was the person that took me home from the hospital. That was just one of those things that really spoke to the brotherhood that we had.

What happened in the Super Bowl

SF: In that Super Bowl, what went wrong?

TD: I think if we played Denver 10 times, as a football team we should have beat them 10 times. We just made too many mistakes that we were not accustomed to making, in particular on the offensive side.

I don’t feel like we played bad defensively. But I do feel like there were a couple of plays defensively that were uncharacteristic of this football team. I think Josh Norman got his hands on a couple of balls that we had seen him intercept all season long. And it didn’t go our way.

And when they announced that Jerricho didn’t catch that ball — to this day, Jerricho caught it.

(Editor’s note: Panthers wide receiver Jerricho Cotchery bobbled a ball in the first quarter that would have been about a 25-yard gain to Denver’s 40. Instead, the ball was controversially ruled incomplete, and two plays later Cam Newton was sacked in the end zone and fumbled. Denver recovered for the game’s first touchdown).

Dallas fans, I know you guys love to say “Dez caught it.”

But Jerricho caught it. There was nothing that showed the ball hit the ground. I’ve gone back and watched it, over and over. ... If that’s ruled a catch, then the play call is different on the very next play. So, sack-fumble-touchdown? That never happens. It never becomes a thing.

SF: I have re-watched it too and agree with you regarding Cotchery. Seemed like a catch.

TD: That was a Peyton Manning call right there.

SF: They wanted Peyton, Denver’s QB at the time, to win another one?

TD: It was: “We want to do this for Peyton.”

SF: At your retirement ceremony in 2021, your former teammate Jonathan Stewart said: “It’s time for you to run for mayor, dog.” Any political aspirations?

TD: Not at all. Listen. You talk about judgment? You go into the political world, you’re gonna get judged every single day on every action. I literally want no part of that.

I get asked about that a lot, and also about if I ever want to enter into the coaching world.

I have a ton of respect for what coaches do. But as a player, when you are in a system so long. ... I hated being in the film room and I hated being in the meeting rooms, over and over, doing the same thing. ... So now coaches — they have to be in there before the players, and after they leave. And then if you’re a college coach, you also have to recruit.

I want no part of that. Like I said at the beginning of this, I have an opportunity with my son and my nephews to really watch them play in high school. .

After playing 16 years in the NFL, I think I would be doing them a disservice if I made a decision to go into a coaching career and spend more time away from them. My son is going into his sophomore year (Thomas Davis Jr. is a 6-2, 210-pound linebacker at Weddington with numerous scholarship offers), along with my nephews.

So at the very least, for the next three years, I won’t even entertain a coaching opportunity right now.

For much more from this interview as well as other “Sports Legends” guests like Steph Curry, Roy Williams, Jake Delhomme, Mike Krzyzewski, Bobby Richardson and Dawn Staley, check out the “Sports Legends of the Carolinas” podcast. The “Sports Legends of the Carolinas” coffee table book debuts in November 2023 and is now available to pre-order — at a 20% discount — at SportsLegendsBook.com.