CHARLOTTE — One of the cool things about football is how it can turn grown men into little kids. It's a game, one we all take seriously, but it's still a game.

So when you get Panthers linebacker Devin Lloyd talking about how he spent the time leading into his first training camp here — in a new city, signed to fulfill an old mission — the look on his face is somewhere between Christmas for a 5-year-old and meeting your true love for the first time.

Devin Lloyd is a serious dude. But Devin Lloyd just keeps grinning when he starts talking about this.

As Lloyd began the week when he officially took over as the Panthers' new middle linebacker, possibly to become the next in a proud lineage that includes a couple of Hall of Famers and his general manager, he dropped a quick text to a known number.

It was answered eagerly and almost immediately by someone who takes this as seriously as he does.

"I reached out to him, I asked him if he wanted to meet up," Lloyd said after practice Friday. "He was really responsive and just hit me back really quick.

"So I'm like, 'Hell yeah, let's do it.'"

Within minutes, a Monday meeting in the linebackers room of Bank of America was set up.

This is not just any meeting though, For the symbolism of what was about to happen, we should have probably brought in dramatic lighting and a symphony maybe, picked the tuxedos up from the cleaners. But that's not either of their styles.

That's because Devin Lloyd and Luke Kuechly started the week before training camp and the home stretch of Hall of Fame preparations doing one of each of their favorite things — talking ball.

"I was telling him it's cool to have the guy, obviously going into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, willing to help out, definitely," Lloyd said with the look of a fan meeting a hero. "It's the first thing that came to my mind, knowing how good of a person he is."

In Lloyd's mind, this was going to be a simple catch-up. He's taken his role here seriously, and he wanted to ask one of the franchise's greatest leaders for tips on how to lead in a new place.

The fact he chose that room, where Kuechly spent so much time in his career, so many hours mastering his craft, might have triggered something in both of them.

"A little nostalgic," Lloyd said, grinning again, clearly enjoying reliving it. "And then he's like 'Want to throw on the tape?'"

Luke Kuechly asking you if you "want to throw on the tape" is like Michelangelo saying "Hey, you want to help me finish this ceiling?," or Jimmy Page handing you a guitar and saying "Let's jam." It's Muhammad Ali asking you to spar, or Beyoncé recording a duet, or Steph Curry challenging you to a game of HORSE. However good you are at your particular thing, you're not better at it than they are, because they're the best to ever do it. But you do it anyway, just to be a part of it and maybe something rubs off.

Lloyd knew this, of course. He remembers the "crazy plays" Kuechly made so often. Lloyd also grew up a Cowboys fan, so he remembers the 2015 Thanksgiving game, when Kuechly had two picks, one of which was returned for a touchdown while punching the offending quarterback in the head as he crossed the goal line.

"He was revered," Lloyd said. "The smartest linebacker in the league."

So Lloyd understood the context and was excited to begin a relationship.

But you don't propose on the first date; that wouldn't be appropriate. So Lloyd asked a few serious questions, because, again, he's a serious person. And then it started happening.

"So we were talking, because the first question I was asked was about leadership and how he went about being a leader whenever he was playing," Lloyd began. "And then he looks at me and says, 'Can we watch some tape, after we get done?'

"I was like, 'Hell, yeah.'"

This was not a quick cut-up, because it's clear that Kuechly wanted to just be a football guy for a minute as much as Lloyd wanted to crawl around inside the head that will be unveiled in bronze in 14 days.

Asked how long the impromptu film session went on, Lloyd grinned again and said "Like an hour and a half or so."

Sounds about right.

This was familiar, even if they weren't. They had talked before, but not quite like this. When Lloyd was coming out of Utah before he was taken in the first round by the Jaguars in 2022, Kuechly's agency got the two of them on the phone together as a recruiting tactic.

This, this was different.

There is something surreal about this meeting, particularly happening when it did, days before Lloyd took a huge step in his career, and before Kuechly becomes football immortal.

Luke Kuechly's a busy guy right now. Two weeks from today, he's being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's finishing his speech. He's worrying about details, because that's what he does. His nature is to be hands-on, to do things himself that others would happily do, so as not to put anyone out. But even now, he's willing to say no to things.

But Lloyd wanting to catch up wasn't an imposition; it was a gift — possibly one of the nicest things anyone could have done for Luke Kuechly in this moment of his life.

When asked about their meeting after it had just ended moments earlier, Kuechly just smiled.

Then he took his hand, held it out flat in front of his face, and moved it calmly and slowly to the right, parallel to the tabletop he was sitting at.

"He's like this," Kuechly said of Lloyd with a simple gesture. "He's about ball."

If Luke Kuechly affirms you as steady, and declares that you are, in fact, "about ball," there can be no further debate, or any higher compliment.

That's where Lloyd begins his first season with the Panthers. It's not just that they wanted him to call the signals and cover some tight ends and tackle people. They need him to be the identity of a defense that has always been identified by the middle linebackers. When your franchise has a Sam Mills, followed by a Dan Morgan, followed by a Jon Beason, followed by a Luke Kuechly, there's a weight that goes with that. When the next tier of signal-callers includes merely excellent players like Micheal Barrow and Shaq Thompson, you realize what it means to be that guy here.

"Yeah, I mean, it's a blessing first of all; it's a great opportunity," Lloyd said. "Just for one to have that resource, but then also, this city being used to watching great linebacker play, it's something I don't take lightly. And I'm just trying to do everything I can to continue that legacy, right?"

That's Lloyd's job now, and he's already showing that he could well belong. Panthers head coach Dave Canales saw it after one practice.

"Just having Devin in the middle of that defense," he began. "Bringing them together, getting things communicated quickly, before they take the field, getting together, having that focus for this play, for this rack, for this period. It's great to have that kind of energy and that juice out there, and I could feel that was a noticeable feeling that I got from Devin and his leadership out there."

And that leadership is not accidental. It comes from habit, and Lloyd spending his last days off of the summer watching film with Luke Kuechly — more film than he expected — was done intentionally.

"It's great. He's got all the answers," Lloyd said. "So, any questions that I'd have, obviously, it's like talking to a coach, but somebody who also did it. Most coaches obviously didn't play the game at that level. So you've got the coach's perspective and the player's perspective.

"So it's real nice because Luke can give me things that apply directly to being on the field in that moment, just like going to your head, just slowing it down. But it's great. It's just nice talking to somebody who gets it."

They both get it, but it almost got away from both of them.

One does not casually study with Luke Kuechly.

Having talked to both about the art of watching film, Lloyd and Kuechly clearly enjoy it, because they can go on and on describing it. But time is finite, and there comes a point when other obligations have to be met. And as much as these two love ball, they're also dutiful and polite, each not wanting to impose on the other.

"I know we could have went way longer than we did," Lloyd said, that grin creasing his face again. "I honestly didn't want to take up too much of his time, but at a certain point, it's like 'Hey, it's been a little minute.'

"I think he was a little disappointed. He's like, 'Damn, we're not going to just keep going?' in his head, because he didn't say that out loud. He was like, 'Yep.'

"But in his head, I feel like he wanted to keep going, right?"

Probably so. Which is why this story will continue. People who share this passion, and this aptitude, tend to find each other. And Lloyd is grateful to have Kuechly's imprimatur, and humbled that someone he's looked up to is so nearby, and so willing to share.

"I mean, it's great," Lloyd said. "So I love that because I love ball too, you know? Like I said, it's great just to have him as a resource.

"And it's definitely not the last time we're going to meet because I know he's down to do it any time."

Well, maybe not any time. Lloyd might have to wait a couple of weeks. They're both pretty busy at the moment.