CHARLOTTE — Teammates could tell it was going to be a good day Wednesday, when quarterback Andy Dalton rolled out to practice with a black headband.

And again Thursday, when he switched it up to the white version. You have to keep people on their toes. He's done this before.

"He went Cobra Kai," long snapper JJ Jansen said, admiringly.

"I ain't noticed the headband, but it don't surprise me," cornerback Jaycee Horn said. "He comes out there dripping every week."

For the veteran backup, consider that mission accomplished.

"Oh, you want to know the origin of the headband?" Dalton said. "You're asking me about it, so obviously it's getting the people talking.

"I feel like it's a good look. It's a vibe people have noticed, no question. Now you've got the people talking."

As fashion plates go, he's practically Derek Zoolander around here, and the 37-year-old Dalton has proven he has what it takes to stay on top of the game.

"Same thing when I go dark visor, then I don't wear a visor," he continued. "Then I go arm sleeve, then I go no arm sleeve and then everybody's like, hey, where's the visor?

"I'm saying that's exactly what I want you to do. I want you to be talking about what I'm wearing."

Horn, who goes back and forth with Dalton every day in practice when he's running the scout team offense, admires the veteran's fashion sense, and his ability to push boundaries in more ways than one.

"I was about to say, dark visor, one arm sleeve he can fit in with the DB room," Horn said with a nod. "Yeah, for sure."

"Oh yeah, I like Andy Swag," safety Nick Scott agreed. "Is he still rocking the dark visor? We need the dark visor back and then the headband will flow a little bit more. Headband with no visor doesn't make sense to me. I understand what he's trying to do.

"He's bringing the juice. He's trying to stay young, you know, but I want to see more. I want to see more. Don't just go headband; go headband, arm sleeve, dark mouthpiece, but not in, just hooked up to the helmet just hanging."

Football, of course, remains a very uniform-driven sport. They fine you on Sundays if your socks aren't the right height. So the secret is in how you accessorize. And Dalton's drip crosses all positional, generational, and demographic boundaries. That's how you can tell when someone has transcended fashion and gone straight to having their own unique style.

"I think Andy has been one of the foremost encouragers of my own personal swag adventure," Jansen said. "I went from zero swag to a lot of it here in the last couple of years. The two biggest influences have been my 12-year old son and Andy Dalton.

"So it helps when the older guys on the team are also kind of encouraging each other to one up, and I don't have the hair to pull off the full bandana, but I like it."

"It's cool, it's super cool," Horn said. "Especially a guy like Andy who's been doing it for a long, long time. Everything we didn't see, he's seen it 100 times over. Just getting closer and then, him playing at a high level in this league for a long time and make it harder on us because he's a scout team quarterback, so he'll be throwing dots out there talking trash to us. But yeah, it's fun having him out there for sure."

Dalton enjoys the back and forth with Horn, the top talker on defense, and all of them really (Dalton routinely chest-bumps the entire defense during stretch).

Horn's also a man who has a certain je ne sais quoi on the field, so Dalton knows there's an element of competition.

"Yeah sometimes you want to look like a create-a-player, and other times you don't," Dalton said dismissively of the star cornerback. "But if you always look like a create-a-player like Jaycee, ....

"Jaycee's like, why don't you wear the visor all the time? I said, people aren't talking about what you're wearing because you wear the same thing every day."

So a lot of thought goes into this?

"The thing is there's a lot of thought, but there's not really much thought either," Dalton said. "Because it doesn't take much to say, today I'll do this, today I'll do that. Mix it up."

Of course, there's a limit to how seriously we're supposed to take this, right? But there's also a practical application to Dalton's boundary-pushing choices.

Jansen has been here long enough to see trends come and go. He's branched out over the years, encouraged by his mentor (and his kid) to adopt sleeves and tights, visors at times. And he's also seen what happens when a team begins to have fun in its own way, the organic rituals that become part of a culture. And it becomes contagious.

"It's a thing to just add a little energy and juice," Jansen said. "It's one of those things that I would say adds a little bit of fun energy to the beginning of practice. So instead of starting at a zero, you start at a two or three and then as the practice builds and the music and all that stuff kicks in, like you just keep going up.

"It's not a big thing, but I think it makes it a little bit more fun and when guys are having a smile on their face, they tend to run faster and play harder. And so yeah, I think it's a good little thing."

Fun is good.

And Scott clearly believes in that part, as well as Dalton's ability to attract attention.

"Oh, we were paying attention to him today," Scott said with a laugh. "We had three picks on the defensive side of the ball, so he had all of our attention today."

Dalton's fine with that. He understands his role, as both the guy getting the defense ready for Sunday, ... and of course as an icon and an entertainer.

When a teammate walks by and hears this very serious discussion, he mentions that Dalton had previously only gone headband on Fridays, with a sleeve.

"Exactly," he replied. "You don't even know when I'm wearing it now. ... But you're talking about it."

And to prove his commitment to keeping the paparazzi on their toes, Dalton showed up for Friday's practice without a headband. The equipment staff cheered excitedly anyway, as Dalton waved to the admiring crowd.