CHARLOTTE — It has been a long time.

But if you're talking about time, inevitably, the conversation turns back to JJ Jansen.

"He's everlasting," special teams coach Tracy Smith said simply, and that may not be hyperbole.

The Panthers' long snapper is the only man on this roster who has won a playoff game in this uniform. He's been here since 2009, and he was here for the 2015 NFC Championship, the last time Bank of America Stadium hosted a playoff game, and the last time the Panthers left the field victorious in the postseason.

Since that night, he's played for seven different head coaches (including three interims), cycled through countless kickers and punters and teammates on the punt and field goal teams, and, in short, has seen some things.

But for Jansen, there was always a certainty, a faith that he'd get to do this again.

"I've never had a doubt," Jansen said this week. "I've sort of told myself for a while now that I want to be part of it again. I was a part of the John Fox era, the Ron Rivera all the way through the Super Bowl run, and even the wild card in '17, that was still the same team.

"And I've always said I wanted to be a part of one more full run all the way up. So now, we'll see how long we can make this run go, hopefully it ends in four wins. But this team's still got a lot of climbing to do, and it's a good group, and I want to be a part of the full climb.

"So, I never had a doubt that I wouldn't get back to a playoff game, and I still think I've got plenty more in my future."

He's already done a lot.

He's the franchise's all-time leader with 277 games played in the regular season. And when he walks onto the field Saturday night, he'll move into a tie for sixth on the team's all-time chart for playoff games played.

Thomas Davis leads that list with 11, followed by John Kasay with 10, Julius Peppers, Jordan Gross, and Steve Smith with nine each, and a group with eight, including Ryan Kalil, Jake Delhomme, Nick Goings, Brad Hoover, Jason Kyle, and Dante Wesley. To put Jansen's career into context, he's played with all of those men other than Goings (who retired just before Jansen arrived) and Kyle (the long snapper before him). He lives in Kasay's old house, which fits because Kasay was his original mentor, and between the two of them, they've been on the roster in some fashion for every Panthers season ever played.

Franchise leaders, playoff appearances

And he continues to do his job with the same kind of efficiency he always has. Even as he approaches his 40th birthday, he's performing at a high level.

So when Smith was recently asked how much longer Jansen might have, he just laughed.

"He's doing great, he's having an unbelievable season; He can do this for as long as he wants to," Smith said, just warming up. "He's everlasting. There's no proof that he's not a robot. Nobody knows that he is not AI. We're just going to go forward to the end of time, as far as I'm concerned.

"Feel free to put that wherever you want to type it."

Smith said that with a smile on his face, but the job of being a long snapper and a captain is a serious one. For one thing, you might only play six or seven snaps a game, but the expectation is perfection. But the job goes far beyond snapping, from his roles as a team captain, to lobbyist with officials.

"He really helps the team," Smith said. "He has embodied the captain role and taken it seriously, and he really kind of makes it part of his daily mission to help his teammates, anyway he can. Happy to have him.

"Cool to have him in this kind of big game experience. We're getting to the time of the season where some of the guys, maybe their eyes get a little big, it's kind of showtime, and JJ's ready to go with a story or four about each thing."

And with that experience, he's seen things come full circle.

Kasay was his original mentor, who taught him not only how to be a professional football player, but also how to be a professional. And now, Jansen's playing the same role for rookie kicker Ryan Fitzgerald, who has hit four game-winning field goals this season.

"He's been great for me," Fitzgerald said of Jansen. "I mean, just the wisdom, and he never stays to himself. Like he's always willing to share stuff, his experiences, so it's just been great. I need to start writing down. I need to just have a notepad and a pencil anytime he talks. He's told me a lot about how John mentored him and his faith in football and everything in between, and so I think he has a pretty good idea of how to mentor me, and he's done a great job. I've learned a lot.

"I think just the way he ticks, how he operates, how he carries himself is the biggest thing."

And because of the way he ticks, how he operates, and how he carries himself, there's a level of respect for what he does here.

Head coach Dave Canales sought him out before practice this week, and they talked through some of the analytics that could come into play this weekend. That's a special area of interest for Jansen, who has studied the game long enough and deeply enough to be encyclopedic in his recall of situational numbers.

But the thing Jansen brings to the team goes beyond the numbers, and his experience gives him a wisdom of what it takes this time of year.

"You're certainly answering questions," Jansen said. "I think when I was a young player, I was probably excited, anxious for the game, but I don't know that I necessarily went around asking, hey, what's it going to be like? I really think it's about managing all of the emotions before the game, before kickoff, right? Your warm up, the energy in the stadium, there's always an electricity. There are more cameras, there are more studio setups in the corner of the field.

"You just kind of know it's a bigger deal than maybe Preseason Game 3 or whatever. But then the game kicks off, and you don't really notice that stuff anymore. It's a loud crowd, but we've played in front of plenty of loud crowds here and on the road, and you're just managing the game the way you'd manage any other one."

The ability to treat things the same way is central to Jansen's job, and as the guy who has seen the things, he's an invaluable resource for players and coaches alike.

That's something he learned in his first playoff game, in 2013 here against San Francisco. The Panthers had gone 12-4 that year and were ascending, but the 49ers were coming off a Super Bowl appearance, and a lot of Panthers players realized all at once how things change.

So over the last month, as the Panthers were playing de facto playoff games, pushing toward this moment, he's talked to people about that difference.

"I think the biggest thing that you've got to sort of help the guys navigate as a veteran is, not to let your emotions get carried away," he said. "We had a couple of uncharacteristic penalties, a couple after-the-whistle fouls that helped San Francisco kind of put us away. . . .

"And I think the biggest thing that I noticed was like, oh, that's what playoff football looks like. Having never played in it, San Francisco being the defending NFC champs. And you get your first flavor of like, oh, that's what this intensity, the speed, all that stuff looks like. It ratchets up a little bit."

And while Jansen has done this before, and lives the be-the-same-guy-every-day life, there's still a smile that creeps across his face when he considers what it's like right now.

Because having been here as long as he has, having been through years when things weren't this good, and seeing the team climb again, the main thing he's feeling this week is gratitude.

"I've not thought about what it means, but it will be fun," Jansen said. "I think every year you start out with the goal of winning your division so you get a home playoff game, and that's what we accomplished this year as a group. It was certainly one of the more unusual ways in, probably in NFL history, but it's an incredible honor to win your division and get to host a playoff game and have an opportunity in front of your home crowd to win and advance.

"So, I'm looking forward to it. On a personal level, it's been a while, but you still remember those games. You remember how you felt."

Especially with the benefit of time, and the realization of how special these opportunities are.