CHARLOTTE — It took a few years for Derrick Brown to become the kind of dominant defensive tackle who goes to Pro Bowls. And the work was hard.

But the work to overcome a serious knee injury that ended his 2024 season after one game was even harder.

And now that he's back to his old form, it's easy to think it was a linear process. But having to take a major step back and build again has made Brown grateful for the work so many people put into getting him back.

His coaches and teammates are likewise glad to have him back, anchoring a defense that's made incredible strides with his return.

That's why his teammates voted him this year's winner of the Ed Block Courage award, which goes to "players who exemplify commitments to the principles of sportsmanship and courage." And that's why he's likely to be one of the favorites for a lot of awards, like comeback player of the year, another Pro Bowl, and possibly more.

Because when you see Derrick Brown back to being Derrick Brown, throwing opposing linemen from side to side, you realize this comeback was a special one.

"I mean, his leadership is incredible, really," Panthers head coach Dave Canales said. "Because since I've been around him, the work ethic that shows up every day at practice and the focus, the intentionality in games, dealing with adversity, whether a team goes down and scores a touchdown on the first drive, you don't see Derrick panic, you just see him go right back to work and it doesn't affect his style of play.

"And to watch him attack the recovery process for his knee, to keep jumping over the milestones and getting himself back to training camp, to that first padded practice. I remember really talking to him on that day. I was like, How did it feel? He was like, 'Oh, it felt so good to be back out there hitting people.' And just the immense gratitude and relief that I could feel from him to be able to just play football again, and he's meant so much for this group."

That's a quick summation of it all, but to realize what it took to get there, you have to go back to Sept. 8, 2024, after a season-opening loss to the Saints. Brown played the whole game, his normal 91 percent of the snaps (60 of the 66 total), but came home and realized something was wrong.

The discomfort he played through was later revealed to be a torn meniscus, which is a serious problem for anyone, but especially for a 330-pound man whose game is built on explosive power.

"He realized that the knee just wasn't quite right," said assistant athletic trainer Karen Ocwieja, who walked Brown step-by-step through his recovery. "So the shock came the next day, we got the MRI, and it's, hey, this is a pretty significant injury that for the health of your knee is important to get fixed, and I think initially it was a little bit of just disbelief.

"He was like, 'I feel fine. I'm walking. Why would I need to have surgery if I feel OK right now?"

The shock was compounded by the timing, coming just after his best season, his first Pro Bowl honor, and the contract extension that marked him as a cornerstone piece of the program Canales and general manager Dan Morgan were building. And coming after a disappointing loss in that first game of their administrations, the news about Brown's MRI was a gut punch for a lot of people.

Of course, the reality hit quickly, because as tough and strong as Brown might be, there was no denying the damage, so season-ending surgery was the only answer.

"I mean, the meniscus in itself is extremely important for his current athletic career," Panthers vice president of player health and performance Denny Kellington said. "But even post-playing career too. So the best thing for an athlete is, yes, you want to take care of it now, but you also want to give him a healthy knee for later on in life. This is a father, a husband who will be active even when his playing days are done. So taking care of it and doing the right thing at that time was the best thing for him as a player, but more importantly as a person."

Of course, Kellington was also new here, so he was learning about Brown on the fly as he watched his progress through the steps. Brown throws his trust around far less casually than he does opposing centers and guards, and Kellington was coming in from the Bills after Brown was three months into the rehab.

"He did his homework on me my first day here," Kellington laughed. "He's like, Yeah, I talked to (former Panthers and Bills defensive tackle) DaQuan Jones, so you're good in my book."

And Kellington also realized that bond of trust existed between Ocwieja and Brown, since she had been there for him from the start of the process.

"I think Karen did a great job of just kind of keeping my brain off of it," Brown said, explaining the trust he has in Ocwieja, who has been here since 2021.

She laughs when that's relayed, because as any athletic training staff member knows, repairing and rehabbing the physical injury is only part of the job, as they are part counselor, part coach, and also an accountability partner.

"He will do exactly as you want him to do," Ocwieja said with a grin. "But you need to remind him of the next thing, so a little bit of taking it one step at a time, right? So we're going to do this, and then we're going to do this, and if anyone knows him, he's a little social. He likes to chat, and so kind of keeping things on track is part of it.

"The nice thing about having so many people around him and supportive of him, I could be the person directing the rehab and everyone else is there to support him and make sure he's getting what he needs from all aspects of him as the human," she said. "Because it was obviously a team effort; we started with a lot of stuff in the training room and then as soon as we could get in the weight room, you know, add that component and then as soon as you get on the field you add that component so you have strength and conditioning, you have sports science, nutrition involved from the get-go just to support him from all angles."

And one of the things they found out about Brown is his need to connect with teammates, even when he wasn't on the field. Being on injured reserve during a season can be an isolating time, but Brown plugged in where he could in meetings. But when you're a 300-plus-pound athlete, and you're in the non-weight-bearing stages of rehab, you can't come and go as you please. So Brown rode around for the first period of his rehab on a small scooter.

"He found a little joy in driving that around," Ocwieja said.

Mostly, because it allowed him to be around his teammates.

"I spent more time just talking to guys last year than anything," Brown said. "Just being around while not playing, to be honest, that's it. Being around the guys every single day. That was awesome. And then her giving me breaks. I mean, I never felt like I was trapped in here.

"I'd just walk around, talk to people, so I mean, I never really had like that moment of like, damn, it's going to be a while."

That kind of compartmentalization was key because it would be months before he'd be back to normal football activity.

Return to play coordinator Thomas Barbeau, who is not an NFL lineman but is not a small man, joked that he could tell Brown was beginning to feel like himself when he'd pick him up with one arm.

And as he worked his way back, that meant hours in the weight room, as he got back to the kind of workouts he was used to, which are significant.

Director of performance Josh Hingst, who leads the weight room component, laughed and said it was easy for him to tell when Brown was back to himself.

"Yeah, just look at how much weight's on the bar, and then you'll see how he stands out," Hingst said. "It's pretty simple when you got four or five plates on the bar, then you know Derrick Brown's at that rack."

But like Ocwieja and Kellington and the rest of the athletic training staff, Hingst also quickly learned that even though Brown walked in the door as a massive and strong human being, he took that to another level through his work.

And occasionally, the fun-loving side of Brown would work out. When they were doing medicine ball workouts outside the weight room, Brown launched one so high in the air it got stuck on a ledge outside Bank of America Stadium, more than 20 feet off the ground.

"It was one of the little ones," Brown said, downplaying a feat of strength few others could even approach.

But as he worked and pushed to get back, they had to work on pacing as much as building him up again, because Brown takes great pride in huge workloads on Sunday, so incorporating the recovery process into his rehab was critical.

"Intense but intentional," Hingst described his first impressions of Brown. "You love Derrick's commitment, you love his work ethic, you love his relentlessness. Everything you see on the field, you see and how he attacks the weight room and just in his preparation and what he knows he needs to do to get his body ready to be its very best.

"It's probably one of the best things in the world for us, to see 95 walk out there on the field, and he's standing up there, over the football and you know he's a Carolina Panther. It makes all of us in the building feel great.

"So I was really impressed with Derrick, just how smart and intelligent he is, and just how critically thinking he was relative to his own training and his own body, and how aware he was, and just everything. That's what I love about Derrick: he leaves no stone unturned in terms of he's going to do everything possible to maximize who he is out there each Sunday for us as a team, for himself, for his family, for this community, and our fans. It's awesome."

As the team's elder statesman and fellow captain, JJ Jansen has seen Brown from the start of his career, and he's seen guys go through rehabs before. He compared Brown's drive to that of former linebacker Thomas Davis during his three ACL tears and saw the same kind of commitment to get back on the field.

"Derrick has been as competitive a guy, as professional a guy as you can ever have from a highly drafted pick," Jansen said. "The way he's approached his work, the way he's improved year after year, all of those things were just sort of a steady increase year after year. And so when you hit an element of adversity, an injury which is sort of weird in terms of the amount of pain compared to the rehab, and it's certainly significant as a player to the point you lose your entire season, that can be very demoralizing for a guy.

"What was so impressive about the process of returning to play was how committed he was to the team last year. That's easy to have a season ending injury in week one and then just kind of walk away from everything, but as a leader, as a captain, as a guy that really everyone turns to for guidance, and he doesn't talk a lot, but the way he handles his business, the way he prepares, that was really equally as impressive to me was his ability to be a great leader, captain, and just generally a great teammate in the face of adversity last year."

And once he got back on the field with his teammates, those signs of getting back to this level were there quickly.

Center Austin Corbett's had ringside seats for Brown's ascension as a player, often drawing that assignment in training camp drills, so he can tell you in very precise detail about Brown's strength and determination.

"I think he's just the standard of what it means to be here," Corbett said. "We're using this season to rewrite that standard, and he was poised for another fantastic year last year, and obviously didn't last one game, and that's part of this game. I say it a lot, football sucks, and we all know. But also, football is the best thing in the world. We love it so much we're going to keep doing it, and when you have all year in the building doing your rehab, just watching guys, just studying film, being a part of practice, watching games, it just drives you, and it just stokes that fire.

"And that's a big fire that he's got burning because he is dominating this league right now and it's awesome to watch. And I'm glad I get to watch it and I don't have to try to combat it. He's just an insanely strong human being. And it's been fun to be here four years against him to see the growth, to see just his understanding of who he is as a player and creating that and just the constant development and growth he's had to get to where it's at this point.

"And for a guy just to continually show up here too, like this is where he's going to be. He's working out here, he's rehabbing here. He knows it works. He trusts it; it just speaks volumes to the people we have in the training room in the strength room. We have the right people. We have people who are going to make a difference in your life if you let them. And then it just sends the message to the rest of the guys in the locker room that it works. You buy in, it works, and there's a significant difference. And it goes back to that standard that we're creating and changing and building here, and it's been awesome to see him do his part in it."

And for Ocwieja, the gratification comes when she sees Brown dominate on Sundays, knowing all the work that went into it, since she walked every step of that road with him.

"He was himself," she said with a grin. "What you see any player on the field is how they play football, how they are in the building, and how they are in the athletic training room, in the weight room, that's their personalities. That's where they shine. And he was the same person. Engaged with the interns, engaged with staff, engaged with the players, and everyone that was around him in the same manner that he would before he was injured,

"So he maintained his same energy, you know, coming to work every day, you know, so the work wasn't on the field, it was in the athletic training room, or it was in the weight room, or wherever it was. He approached it as, this is my job today."

And now he's back, and doing that job better than ever.

PANTHERS PAST WINNERS OF ED BLOCK COURAGE AWARD

2024 - Austin Corbett
2023 - Donte Jackson
2022 - Jaycee Horn
2021 - Jeremy Chinn
2020 - Brian Burns
2019 - Shaq Thompson
2018 - Julius Peppers
2017 - Graham Gano
2016 - Luke Kuechly
2015 - Cam Newton
2014 - Greg Olsen
2013 - Ryan Kalil
2012 - Ron Edwards
2011 - Thomas Davis
2010 - Jordan Gross
2009 - Dan Connor
2008 - Jake Delhomme
2007 - Mike Rucker
2006 - Colin Branch
2005 - Steve Smith Sr.
2004 - Mark Fields
2003 - DeShaun Foster
2002 - Kevin Donnalley
2001 - Patrick Jeffers
2000 - Mushin Muhammad
1999 - Mike Minter
1998 - Steve Beuerlein
1997 - Tshimanga Biakabutuka
1996 - Lamar Lathon
1995 - Brett Maxie