JJ Jansen, John Kasay linked by time and perspective

So Sunday, it seems somewhat appropriate that when JJ Jansen ties the Panthers franchise record for service time when he appears in his 221st career game, he’ll do it with the blessing and support of his former teammate and current friend John Kasay, the guy who taught him how to do all of this football stuff, and so much more.

“There’s no way I would have done any of this without his mentorship,” Jansen said simply, because now, after the two years of daily instructions and the decade to reflect on them, he’s quick to admit that the only reason he’s still here is because of the things he learned when he first arrived, and who taught him those things.

It’s kind of amazing to think about, that here in the Panthers’ 28th season, for all the hundreds of players to pass through these doors, that the franchise has never gone into a season without either Kasay or Jansen on the roster at the beginning of the year.

So come Sunday, whenever Jansen takes the field and does what he’s done so many times, he and Kasay will be tied at 221 games apiece. The two of them left Steve Smith (182), Thomas Davis (176), and Jordan Gross (167) in the dust years ago.

Kasay missed some games along the way because of injuries, but he was a fixture here for the first 16 seasons the Panthers existed.

There were exactly five long snappers in franchise history before Jansen arrived. Kasay’s first one, Mark Rodenhauser, begat the ill-fated Jerry Jensen/Danny Villa year in 1998, but they begat Brian Kinchen (1999-2000), who begat Jason Kyle (2001-2008).

And for all anyone knew at the time, Kyle might have kept going. Long snappers often sign a series of one-year contracts, and Kyle was a free agent. But in one of those movements of history you only recognize with time and perspective, the Panthers were beginning to strip the roster of more expensive veterans in the 2009 offseason (a process that accelerated leading into the 2010 season and eventual lockout of 2011), so they traded a conditional 2011 seventh-round draft pick — “slightly more than a bag of balls,” Jansen laughed — to the Packers for a spare long snapper they weren’t using.

There’s a lot of laughter when people consider that transaction, and the fact it turned out to be so meaningful.

“Are you s—ing me, JJ Jansen’s passing John Kasay? That makes me feel really old,” then-Panthers coach John Fox, now 67 and working as a senior defensive assistant for the Colts, said recently. “I can’t believe that.”

It’s true. And though we’re talking about a seemingly inconsequential trade, it turned out to be a bigger deal than anyone might have imagined. But first, they had to get him here, so he could start learning those lessons.

Jansen was very good at his craft, standing out at Notre Dame and at specialist camps, because he had the unique ability to stand on his head and fling a ball between his legs at a high rate of speed with a tight spiral to a specific spot. It’s not the kind of thing you learn in trade school or anything.

Eventually, he learned how to snap, and how to lead.

The Packers brought him in as an undrafted rookie in 2008 to pair him with a kid kicker named Mason Crosby, and a young punter named Jon Ryan. Crosby’s still kicking for the Packers, and Ryan eventually retired after 12 years in the NFL with the Packers and Seahawks. At the time, they were sort of all independent contractors, young players trying to create careers for themselves.

“The blind leading the blind,” Jansen said of that training camp. “I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and those guys were worried about themselves.”

But in the preseason finale for the Packers in 2008, Jansen blew out his left knee, on a play that with the gift of time and perspective, taught a couple of John Kasay lessons to JJ Jansen.

Jansen’s snap to Packers punter Jon Ryan was high, which triggered a strange avalanche of events which led him to this place.

“I saw his eyes flash up, a guy got beat off the edge, so Jon grabbed the ball and took off running,” Jansen recalled. “I don’t know what’s happening, so go to throw a block, Jon cuts back, I put my foot in the ground to throw a block, tear my LCL in my left knee.”

Jansen had many thoughts at that moment, but they began with a bigger question for a kid who had plenty. His girlfriend at the time, whom he strongly suspected he had a future with, was in the stands. So were his parents, and on the fringes of his NFL rookie season, the football part was gone.

“Why did that happen?” Jansen said. “In that moment, Laura had just moved up to Green Bay. I knew I wanted to marry her. She had just moved up there, my parents in the stands, like, why is this happening?

“Now I have a philosophy. I know the Lord is moving in a way that’s always good for me. I might not know why this bad thing happening is a good thing. Now I call it my five-year rule. In five years I’ll know.

“That was in 2008. By 2013 we had a long-term contract, a home, and a kid here in Charlotte. It’s like, ‘Ahhh, that’s why that happened in August of 2008. The Lord wanted me here, I don’t know why. But the mentorship of John when I got here was the most important in my career, but also in my life.”

But before Jansen could look back and realize the great blessings that were in store for him here, there were a lot of lessons, and some of them go back to that night in 2008 before he ever met John Kasay.

Jansen was sort of out there freelancing on the play after he screwed up the snap a little. Fast forward to the 2009 preseason, Jansen and Kasay and the Panthers were playing the Giants (of course it was the Giants, this story is all about paths crossing in ways you only realize down the line). (These stories also contain a lot of specific time-and-place memories, because if you’re going to kick or snap in the NFL for 221 games, you have to be detailed.)

“I snap the ball, it was a good snap, and I get downfield and set a good pick, but get juked in the open field, and I go flying by,” Jansen recalled. “I remember John standing right on the white line on the sideline. His toes were never on the field. With one finger, he starts bringing me in.”

“Your job is to make a good snap, protect the punter, and don’t get hurt,” Kasay said flatly and a bit sternly.

“Yes sir,” Jansen replied.

“Did you notice anything about making a tackle in that list of demands?” Kasay asked.

“No sir,” Jansen replied.

“Your job is not to make tackles. Do you remember last preseason?” Kasay reminded the youngster.

“He was the first one to tell me; your job is super-important, don’t do anything stupid. You don’t have a replacement,” Jansen said. “We had a long talk about being comfortable being uncomfortable. Literally, that practice, I banged knees with somebody. Like the next three weeks couldn’t move the way I wanted to. He said, ‘you’re the snapper; no matter how you feel, what your emotional state is, that’s your job.’

“He was able to turn me into a pro much quicker. The lessons he learned in years 19 and 20 as a kicker, I was getting in year 2.”