CHARLOTTE — The first two weeks of Darren Waller's time in Charlotte were spent just trying to keep his head above water. It was his first time with a new playbook, a new locker room, a new opportunity to be on the field for the first time since the end of December, 2025.

But the veteran tight end used the holiday weekend to settle into his new life. He found a place to live, sort of: "I moved into an Airbnb. I didn't know Airbnb did monthly, so I moved into an Airbnb and got out of the Residence Inn," he shared Monday. He's finding his way around, something that will be easier when his car arrives: "I have a rental car. My car should be here by the end of the week, getting shipped." And he's located his essentials: "The Harris Teeter is like six minutes from me."

Granted, a Harris Teeter being that close is pretty much a given in the Charlotte city limits, but Waller is still learning his new home and his new team.

"Just checking one thing off at a time and just being patient with the transition," he said.

That patience has paid dividends over the last few months, as Waller waited to find a place to land with a team. He knew exactly what shortened his season last year with the Dolphins. Despite finishing with 24 catches for 283 yards and six touchdowns in just nine games, it was the eight missed games that stuck with him.

"I think last year there was definitely a step back, probably in my long speed," Waller explained, "just because I showed up to training camp with no football foundation of training to the Dolphins."

The Pro Bowler retired from the game after the 2023 season and spent all of 2024 away from the field. The recording artist said he still has over 30 unreleased songs recorded during that time. It wasn't until the offseason ahead of 2025 that he realized he still had more to give, and elected to return. When he arrived for Dolphins training camp in mid-July, he'd only just begun getting back into football shape.

He felt it.

The first injury was a hip flexor.

"A rectus femoris hip flexor," he corrects, referring to the strain to the muscle that is both the primary hip flexor and extends the knee. "It was like a grade 3. The second week I got there, I hadn't sprinted since I retired, and in the speed workout, it's like I got shot for real."

Other injuries popped up throughout the season, something Waller referred to as putting out small fires all year just to be available for the game.

"I think it was just all just a byproduct of showing up playing a football season without laying that entire foundation, thinking you can just show up like the old dude playing pickup at the gym. It's going to be tough."

So, this offseason, he attacked training starting in February to become "really bulletproof in those areas." Because if he could haul in six touchdowns and more yards than any Panthers tight end did last season, all while hobbling through injuries and playing only nine games, what could he do with a true return to form?

The answer, the Panthers are finding out in real time, is simple but impactful.

"Big and fast," summed up coach Dave Canales. "The offensive stuff, the playbook stuff has been really smooth, really easy for him, and we have totally different terminology than where he was at in Miami before, but an intelligent guy, hard worker, so he's been fantastic from a mental standpoint.

"And then physically, he looks great, he looks fast…when you look at Darren, you watch him cover ground, and you're like, 'Hey, he hit 20.8 today on his GPS on this route,' and you're like, he was running that fast? You don't realize it. But that's been cool for Bryce Young to be able to see how his angles change and how to throw it to him, and I'm excited to see what he can bring."

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While there could be a lot of temptation to say just let Waller go out there and be 6-6 with soft hands, the tight end knows everything grows exponentially when he's immersed in the playbook and the system. For the man drafted in 2015, pen and paper is still the preferred choice for how to learn — "They give us the iPad playbooks, but…just writing those things out helped to translate for me mentally." — and he's been spending a lot of extra time with tight ends coach Pat McPherson recently, and extra time on his own to be ready for Week 1.

"I've been able to lean on having really good recall over my career, so I've been learning pretty fast," promised Waller. "It's a lot of the similarities, the concepts from places that I've been. You see different coaches are kind of like descendants of the same trees, so it's like, 'Oh, that's just called this, but I understand the progression, the timing of the play, where to be.'

"So it's been coming. Shout out to Pat, my tight end coach. He's been spending extra hours in meetings with me, going over the installs from day one. So that's been really helpful for me as well. So I feel good about what they're asking me to do."

Now, it's just a matter of doing it. That's easier said than done, but Darren Waller didn't come here to do anything less.

"I'll go anywhere and play and grateful to be where somebody wants me to come be in the mix and see how they can find a way to give me a role on the team. I'm grateful for that," said Waller. "I love being around these guys. It's a great position room I'm in, great young talent all across the board with the team. Great support staff, great people upstairs, downstairs."