CHARLOTTE — Not everybody can do all the things DeeJay Dallas can do on the football field.

Not everybody wants to.

But one of the newest additions to the Panthers roster — promoted from the practice squad on Wednesday to play a number of roles on offense and special teams — makes it clear that there's practically nothing he won't do.

He's the guy who scored the first dynamic kickoff return touchdown in the league last year, taking one to the house for the Cardinals. He's also the guy who whacked Panthers long snapper JJ Jansen in the head while trying to block a punt by rushing up the middle. He also caught a touchdown pass here last season when he was with the Cardinals. He's also a guy who used to lock down Pro Bowl wide receivers when he was dabbling as a defensive back as a younger and smaller man.

That's a pretty varied skill set, and not one everyone here possesses.

"I don't think you can have one without the other, so I like it all," Dallas said with a laugh when asked which aspect of the game he prefers. "I like it all. I like to hit people. I like to make plays; the return game is fun. It's like an adrenaline rush. But then the kickoff is that team aspect like everybody's got to play with 100 percent effort, and that's the beauty of it, because if one person doesn't give it all, you can have a big return."

That's quite the elevator pitch for a player who could end up helping the Panthers in a number of ways soon, whether it's as a backup running back this week if Chuba Hubbard isn't able to play, or as a returner, or a core special teamer. But no matter the role, Panthers head coach Dave Canales loves the way he goes about it.

"He's a guy that I really trust," Canales said. "This was an opportunity for me to reward a guy who's been working his butt off in practice. He's been running all the scout team running back deal. He's been excellent in protection in that role as well. He's doing all the special teams he can cover, he can play different spots, he can return.

"So I just thought a really valuable guy who really stands for what we're about here in terms of just being a team player and being a high effort guy."

As it turns out, he's always been that way, always competitive, and ready to take on any challenge.

Panthers cornerback Mike Jackson, who played in college with Dallas at Miami, remembers the prospect camp in 2016 when a high school cornerback named DeeJay Dallas squared up against a wide receiver from the area named Jerry Jeudy, who would go on to Alabama before he became a first-round pick.

"You already know. I witnessed him locking up Jerry Jeudy," Jackson said with a nod of respect. "Like, I still have a video somewhere on my phone."

Of course, Jackson and Dallas are close friends, so there's an addendum to that story.

"Oh, he wasn't this size then," Jackson laughed of the now-stout running back. "It's OK, I call him fat boy.

"But DeeJay is just an athlete, like he really can play any position. I know what he's going to bring to the table, right? He definitely can move, very athletic, smart. He just loves ball; he's one of those people."

Special teams coordinator Tracy Smith (who, like Canales, coached him in Seattle) invoked a couple of Panthers legends when asked how Dallas could contribute as both a returner and in other ways.

"There are some good examples in Panthers history, Rod Smart, or Michael Bates," Smith said, and the latter of whom was a former Olympic 200-meter bronze medalist who became a five-time All-Pro as a special teamer. "There are a few guys, some of the skills carry over. Being fast, being tough, being aggressive, really having a desire to go make a play, lead to that."

Jansen has seen it and felt it, joking that when he confronted Dallas upon his arrival last month about hitting him in the head on a 2023 punt block attempt in a Seahawks-Panthers game, Dallas replied: "Sorry, man, Tracy made me do it."

"It's certainly rare," Jansen said of Dallas' resume. "When you're an elite ball carrier, punt returner, or kick returner, eventually you kind of end up playing offense because they're trying to get you the ball more, so you end up not covering as many kicks on the kickoff and kickoff return or a kickoff and punt coverage side. So it's rare in the sense that the elite returners have that unique skill set. It's relatively uncommon because you're usually looking for elite ball carriers, and they usually end up on offense or they play corner.

"He's just a good dude. Understands his role, wants to help out, likes special teams a lot, and he's had a special teams plus role with everybody else. So one of the nice parts is if you get a guy that really likes being on teams and has been around the block a few times, they kind of know their role, and they embrace it. When you get young guys sometimes, they look at special teams as a demotion, and then they really struggle to find their place. But the faster guys can fall in love with special teams, they can get themselves promoted to offense or defense. But you're hoping you find guys to fall in love with it because it's in many ways a thankless job."

Not for Dallas, who gets as wound up talking about playing special teams as he participates in them on the practice field. He said that at the University of Miami, that was part of the culture that he grew up in.

"All the starters covered kicks in Miami, so like we always used to say, 'the best players play special teams,'" Dallas said. "So that just stuck with me and I just found my niche. I've been doing it since college — not high school, I was a quarterback then — and I love it. You have to."

And his ability to make plays has been documented.

Last year, when he was with the Cardinals, Dallas was the first player under the new kickoff rules designed to encourage returns to score on one, going straight up the middle, plowing between a couple of would-be tacklers, and then streaking down the sideline for a 96-yard touchdown.

Panthers punter Sam Martin was with the Bills last year, and asked his reaction to that play, Martin said simply: "Oh, s---."

"I'm sure everybody at that point was still trying to figure out what to do with that play, and then here he goes," Martin said. "He's a dynamic player, so I'm excited for him.

"He brings the energy. He's been great in the locker room. So he's one of those guys that's a Swiss Army knife on special teams."

Dallas laughed too when he recalled that play, because at 5-foot-10 and a solid 217 pounds (listed weight), he doesn't have the classic sprinter's build, especially when that sprint is 96 yards with people chasing you in the fourth quarter.

"And when I looked back at that play, it's like the kicker's chasing me," he recalled. "And as soon as I felt the kicker, I was just like, I'm just gonna dive and go from the 3-yard line."

Were you afraid you wouldn't make the goal line?

"No, shoot, I was just tired," he laughed. "I got to the 5, and I'm like, oh man, I got 5 more yards."

Of course, there was obviously more to that play than just his speed, and Dallas gets animated again when discussing how it came together and the new kickoff setup in general.

"It's really everybody getting a body on a body, and then after that it's kind of like Cover-zero in a sense where, where everybody is on the kind of on the same plane, and if the returner finds a way to get past that first wave, it's just you and the kicker, right?" He said. "It's you and the kicker, and after that, it's you've just got to make it happen."

At that point, he says, it's a football play. And since he considers himself a football player, that becomes instinctive.

And it also harkens back to a different era. Dallas is 27, which makes him one of the non-Jansen-and-Martin old guys on special teams.

"I'm 27, and some of these dudes in here make me feel like I'm 45 or 50, like dang, I'm not that old," he said. "But I want to be physical, and I love that you can impose your will on another person, another player.

"It's just that old-school running back mentality, old-school football that I love. The best era of football was like the early 2000s, '90s, like when you could actually hit people, and you could hit people on special teams."

When asked his definition of "old school," he referred to big-hitting safeties such as Sean Taylor and Bob Sanders, so he's still kind of young. And because he has a support system in place with old friends like Jackson and old coaches like Smith and Canales and so many other former Seahawks here, it feels like he's been here longer than the five weeks since he joined the practice squad on Aug. 28.

New offensive tackle Jake Curhan, who was with Dallas in both Seattle and Arizona before joining him here Wednesday, walked by at that moment, and Dallas laughed and said, "I call him my shadow, because he follows me wherever I go."

But the way Dallas follows offensive linemen also has earned him the respect of other players.

"He's just excited to play football every time we get to play, and you can tell when you watch DeeJay Dallas play football, it's like he wants to hit people," Curhan said. "He's not one of those running backs who want to dance around or whatever. He wants to run through somebody's chest, and he's excited to do it, which is infectious."

And that personality is beginning to show. Linebacker Claudin Cherelus, one of the regulars on special teams here, said Dallas "brings that juice every day," but also brings that gravity that comes with being able to do so many different things.

"He's a gadget dude," Cherelus said, rattling off a laundry list of positions Dallas can and has played. "He's all the above, so it it's special, man. It's impressive to watch, really.

"He's definitely making me better, you know. I mean, just from the first day, really, just going against him. It's like somebody who has all that experience at all these positions. And then you're seeing it from an offensive guy that understands leverage on a tackle, he can make an open field tackle like a DB."

Which makes sense, as Jackson's old tape of him covering Jerry Jeudy attests, since Dallas can do so many things.

And as he settles in, he's learning he can assert himself more, have those detailed special teams conversations with Jansen and others prior to practice, where they can talk about the next layers of things they want to do.

"Now being on the active roster, I feel like I can I can help now, just mingling with the guys, learning learning my teammates," Dallas said. "When I was on the practice squad, it was like you can't really say what you want to say because you don't really have the stamp that you want to have, right?"

But now he's about to put his stamp on his Panthers career, and if he's able to put a helmet on somebody while doing it, all the better.