CHARLOTTE, N.C. — By Week 7 of his rookie season, left tackle Ikem Ekwonu had already had plenty of “welcome to the NFL” moments — the kind of moments that humble you, or surprise you, or remind you that this league rarely takes prisoners.

Still, that night in 2022 had hit Ekwonu differently.

In what felt like the dead of night on Oct. 20, 2022 — around 11 p.m. on the East Coast, specifically — the Carolina Panthers struck a deal with the San Francisco 49ers that sent their one true superstar in Christian McCaffrey out west in exchange for a mighty assortment of draft picks. The writing was on the wall, perhaps. The Panthers had already fired their head coach in Matt Rhule. A rebuild was coming.

But Ekwonu, even three years and some change later, is still easily transported back to that day and the shock that came with it. He grew up in Charlotte, after all, and was an unimpeachable Panthers fan, no less. That for years meant turning on the Panthers game and always being on notice for some sort of explosive splendor — because “every time Christian got the ball in his hands, you’d hold your breath a little bit.”

“It definitely showed, ‘Anything could happen at the end of the day,’ ” Ekwonu told The Charlotte Observer of the 2022 trade. “Obviously being a Carolina Panther fan, it was cool being with Christian for like the five weeks I was with him. ... It was definitely eye-opening for sure. Like, ‘Anybody can really go. You never know, it could be you.’ ”

The Panthers (6-5) are playing in their only prime-time game this season when they take on the San Francisco 49ers (7-4) on Monday Night Football in California. And with that, they’re facing McCaffrey for the first time since his departure.

That trade, by NFL standards, was long ago. McCaffrey has played in a Super Bowl since then and been in multiple MVP conversations. The Panthers have churned through two new head coaches, not including interims. There are only a handful of current Panthers players who shared a locker room with McCaffrey, and even fewer saw him at the height of his powers — back in his 1,000-yard rushing and 1,000-yard receiving season in 2019, before injuries muddied his 2020 and 2021 seasons and helped justify the Panthers’ 2022 deal.

But talk to the guys who remember him, and something becomes clear: McCaffrey’s impact is still felt throughout this locker room. It’s enlaced in the stories they tell.

“He’s one of the greatest players I’ve ever been with, greatest running back in my opinion,” said Chuba Hubbard, who spent nearly two seasons as McCaffrey’s understudy and locker room neighbor. Hubbard learned so much from McCaffrey, both via advice and through osmosis, watching professionalism personified.

“He can do everything and anything,” Hubbard continued. “Regardless of switching teams and this and that, obviously he’s still had great success. ... But his impact on Carolina, and the Panthers, won’t ever be forgotten. I know everyone in this locker room and the organization knows that.”

McCaffrey’s longevity

To put a precise number on it: There are nine players in the Panthers locker room now who worked with McCaffrey. That’s long snapper JJ Jansen, offensive tackle Taylor Moton, defensive end Derrick Brown, the 2021 draft class (CB Jaycee Horn, OL Brady Christensen, TE Tommy Tremble and Hubbard), offensive guard Austin Corbett and Ekwonu.

Part of that turnover is because the Panthers have been through a lot since 2022.

But part of it is natural. After all, the average NFL career lasts 3.3 years, according to Statista. That means the Panthers are an average NFL career removed from McCaffrey’s departure.

And McCaffrey, himself, isn’t slowing down. Heading into Week 12, he’s 13th in the league in rushing yards (707) and ninth in the league in receiving yards (732). Another 1,000-1,000 year, somehow, is within the 29-year-old’s grasp — in Year 9 of being in the NFL.

“You get to Year 9, and not a lot of people do it,” Moton, McCaffrey’s 2017 draft classmate, told The Observer. And even fewer running backs do it; the average running back career length is just under 2.6 years.

“So it’s a blessing to be able to play as long as I have, and obviously, we’ve had some fond memories from the early years together,” Moton said of McCaffrey. “It’s good to see him still doing it after all of these years. And continuing to play at a high level.”

McCaffrey at training camp? ‘I’ve never seen that before’

A lot of that longevity comes from taking care of his physical health, which players remarked on a bunch. McCaffrey had his own preparation plan week-to-week, players said, and while he did suffer his fair share of injuries in Charlotte, he also was among the highest-usage backs in NFL history when playing.

But another factor to that longevity?

He was generational.

“It started at OTAs, when I first got here,” then-rookie Tommy Tremble said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him lose on a choice route from the backfield. And would finish all the way down the field every play. That’s when I was like, ‘This guy is legit. He hasn’t lost a rep in practice. I’ve never seen that before.’ So that was like, ‘Oh my god.’ And then he did the exact same thing in a game.”

Ekwonu remembers another moment from the 2022 offseason with McCaffrey at the center. It involved a joint practice with the New England Patriots — and a fight.

“He got hit late as hell,” Ekwonu said. “I mean, to be fair, it was retribution for another play that happened earlier. So he just kind of happened to be the one who had to pay for it in a way. But that started a huge brawl. So obviously that set the tone. ... I mean, obviously we’re going to stand up for our guy no matter what, but it’s some players like, ‘Hell no. Like hell no, we’re not going to let that slide at all.’ ”

Jaycee Horn said McCaffrey is going to have “a gold jacket” when all is said and done. Corbett agreed, calling him “one of the greats of our game” — who is still somehow ascending.

“He’s been doing it since he was at Stanford,” Corbett said. “Just watching him in gap schemes, watching him in zone schemes. Being able to get around the edge. It’s just what he does. And for him to continue to manage that at such a high level like that is incredible.”

McCaffrey’s final days in Charlotte

The trade that sent McCaffrey away still rests in Panthers lore. It’s impossible to escape.

Hindsight might make the trade difficult to swallow now. But it can’t be stressed enough that injuries subdued his impact at the end of his time in Carolina; he only played 16 games for the Panthers across the 2020, 2021 and 2022 seasons for the Panthers. And the immediate returns were compelling:

The Panthers ended up receiving a second-round pick in 2023, a third-rounder in 2023, a fourth rounder in 2023 and a fifth-rounder in 2024. They used a bulk of that in their blockbuster trade later that offseason to get the No. 1 pick, which they used on quarterback Bryce Young.

Because of all this, you can’t explain the Panthers’ present without the McCaffrey trade. Players know it now. They knew it in the moment, too. JJ Jansen did, at least.

Jansen and McCaffrey were right across the locker room with one another on Oct. 20, 2022, and Jansen remembers talking to McCaffrey the Thursday afternoon practice before the Thursday evening trade. McCaffrey was excited but also felt the weight of what was about to come.

“Thursday after practice, he had a pretty good sense,” Jansen told The Observer. “It wasn’t guaranteed, but it was pretty darn close. We talked at his locker. He used to sit right across from me, and he had a lot of mixed emotions. He was certainly excited about the opportunity to go to the 49ers. They’d had a lot of success. His dad (Ed McCaffrey) had played there briefly. He was from the area. He played at Stanford.

“But he felt a lot of angst about leaving here. I mean, this was the place that drafted him. He felt a lot of personal responsibility for maintaining the legacy that he walked into in 2017 that had all those great players and teams. And he got to be part of the last playoff team that we’ve had here under Ron Rivera.”

What stuck out to Jansen most, he said, was how quickly it all happened — how one moment the Panthers had one of their best players in franchise history, the next he was gone.

“Because he was a veteran, I think there was a lot of respect given to him by the front office, including him in the trade, and understanding what was going on. But that also made it hard because he had to live with a couple of weeks of rumor and stuff like that. I remember that well. He called me that night. I talked to him the following morning. And then the next thing you know, we came in from Friday practice, and he was practicing in San Francisco.”

San Francisco is where he’s worked since 2022.

And it’s where he’ll be when he takes on his old team for the first time — the franchise he got traded away from but never left.

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