"Wait," said Brown this spring, skidding to a stop outside of the cafeteria and backing up with a suddenly very interested look on his face. "You're actually blowing stuff up?"

Yes, Derrick, we're actually blowing stuff up.

Which is how Brown and a contingent of 12 teammates found themselves alongside the Special Operations Division from CMPD (Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department) earlier this week.

"That soft s—, naw," grinned Brown as he exited the car on Tuesday, taking in the 200-plus yards of runway the bomb squad uses for training. "But I'll do this."

The Special Operations Division of CMPD is a long-winded way of saying the bomb squad. This is a group of highly specialized officers who train for six weeks at the outset of joining the squad, and continue training throughout their service. Every bomb tech in the country trains on the same FBI base in Huntsville, Alabama, "so we all have the exact same training," explained Lt. Wes Jessup.

But nothing in the FBI training could have quite prepared his crew for what they were tasked with this week.

"First time recreationally blowing things up for people," he grinned. "Quite possibly the most random thing that we have ever done."

When the bomb squad first got the call from the Carolina Panthers, for a moment Jessup was waiting for the punchline. The two organizations have worked together a good bit since CMPD's crew handles the bomb and explosive sweeps for everything at Bank of America Stadium.

"Whether it's a concert, an FC match, Panthers game, anything like that, we're going to have bomb techs out there," explained Jessup. "We have a minimum of three that'll work just the stadium, in conjunction with some of the explosive ordnance dogs that also work the stadium.

"So we kind of work in tandem with them to do sweeps before the game, during the game, and then anything that pops up afterward. All that just keeps fans safe."

Despite the long-standing relationship, though, Jessup still couldn't quite believe what was being requested. Blow up 17 items, representing the Panthers upcoming 2026 games? You can train as much as you want, but like football once the game kicks-off and instinct kicks in, this assignment was unique.

"We weren't sure it was for real at first because we've never had anybody come out here and ask us if we would blow stuff up for them intentionally," he laughed. "And then once we figured out it was real, of course, we're like, yeah, absolutely.

"Obviously, we're very well versed in handling explosives and all that, but again, not knowing how we're going to blow up a pirate ship, how we're going to blow up a kiddy car with a lion in it? Do we know how much to use, what type of explosives? So we were kind of learning on the fly as well, so it was kind of neat to mix all that together."

The NFL's schedule release took place this year during police appreciation week, so before the shoot began, the Panthers sponsored a lunch for the local CMPD crews at their training center, celebrating the long-standing partnership between the two.

"There's a lot of fun being had today," said Panthers senior director of creative, Alex Herko. "CMPD, the bomb squad hosting us out here at their training academy has been unbelievable. The facility is incredible.

"They are rigging this stuff up with all sorts of different explosive material. I don't know what could be more fun than filling stuff with explosives, working with a bomb squad, and blowing stuff up in front of high-speed cameras."

The CMPD bomb-squad crew handled different tasks during the shoot, with three techs tasked with stuffing or wrapping each item with the detonating cord (casually referred to as det cord) used in explosive training simulations. The det cord was then inserted into cast boosters (a canister filled with pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN), and run the other end of the range where each explosion would then be triggered.

In other words, a lot went into making things safely blow up in a fascinating fashion.

The players on hand—Brown, Taylor Moton, Mike Jackson, Chuba Hubbard, Ikem Ekwonu, Robert Hunt, Patrick Jones II, Nic Scourton, Jalen Coker, Tommy Tremble, Mitchell Evans, and AJ Dillon—were all immediately given safety goggles, headphones, explicit instructions on how to trigger the explosions safely, and directions to the bunker for those pieces that might contain shrapnel, "because we can't afford to pay you if you get hurt," one bomb tech joked.

Then, they had their own rules to add.

"Rule number one," preached Pat Jones to the assembled crew in the bunker, "always aura farm."

In typical defensive leader fashion, Brown set a lot of rules as the day wore on, starting with not letting Moton cower behind him, at least as much as a 6-5, 325-pound Moton can hide behind a 6-5, 320-pound Brown. And when it was Coker's turn on the trigger to blow up a pirate, Brown — displeased with how long it was taking — yelled out a new rule that they couldn't be soft and to hurry up.

Coker went at his own perfectly acceptable speed, though, and once the ship—representing the Panthers Week 7 opponent, Tampa Bay — blew into a thousand pieces in the wind, the receiver grinned and quipped, "Mission accomplished... bogey down."

Jackson, the first to arrive and therefore the first to get a crack at being trigger man, was asked if he wanted to blow up the enormous stuffed lion representing Detroit, the Panthers Week 4 opponent, and let out an actual giggle of joy in response.

When he was handed the trigger to ignite the explosive, though, "the moment the button was in my hand, I forgot all that s---." So another rule was implemented: extensive coverage of the steps beforehand.

(See, it's a little like football)

When Hunt set off his massive bag of coffee beans in honor of the Panthers Week 17 opponent, Seattle, he did so with a slow turn and stare-down of the camera befitting an action hero. It might not have created a new rule, but it definitely issued a new challenge.

Who could create the hardest shot amongst the guys?

Tight end Mitchell Evans, as much as he tried, couldn't beat the nerves to win.

"I'm not nervous," he snapped back before deciding to check his watch for his heart rate.

"Is 95 a high heart rate?"

His designated bomb tech guffawed, "For a performance athlete, yeah."

Still, Evans bravely ignited the cord to send a replica Atlanta "A" and toy Falcon flying towards the sun for the Panthers Week 2 divisional opponent. He then proudly declared he didn't even flinch, to which a chorus of teammates and executive vice president of football operations, Brandt Tilis, immediately responded, "You flinched."

It was still better than his fellow tight end, Tommy Tremble, who, after watching Ekwonu light up a line of Terrible Towels for the Panthers Week 16 opponent, the Steelers, declared, "That was scarier than I thought."

Tremble got a turn at the trigger too and blew up the other Atlanta representation for the Panthers' other Falcons matchup in Week 18 — a bowl of peaches. Tremble is from Atlanta and gleefully volunteered for that one, but after successfully clobbering every peach (or cobblering them), was more than content to pass the button along to Dillon and stand far away in the safe zone where he could jump at each explosion with minimal teasing.

Dillon was all too happy to blow up the 31.22-pound L'amuse Gouda cheese wheel imported from Amsterdam, representing the Panthers Week 8 opponent, the Packers. He did so with a smirk, not so much as a single flinch, and just the smidge of revenge against his former team.

"That one was crazy," screamed Tremble in a bit of awe as the cheese exploded from within. "It just incinerated!"

The cheese wheel ended up being the star of the show. Pieces flew over 100 yards away, permeating the air with a smell that on paper sounds pleasant—"a distinctive roasted hazelnut and burnt caramel flavor that retains its velvety texture" as described by Fromagerie l'Amuse — but when heated to a scorched it was closer to rancid thanks to the lingering ash.

"Smoked gouda," Tilis deadpanned.

The cheese wheel's sheer explosive power was thanks in part to bomb squad tech Drew Hyde.

Hyde is a Chicago Bears fan and took perverse joy in stuffing the physical representation of his rival with as much explosive det cord as possible. It was also a bit of payback for his teammate and Packers fan, Ben Dawkins, who had done the same earlier in the day with the massive teddy bear for the Panthers Week 1 opponent, the Chicago Bears.

When Brown set off the Bears prop, it caused the only fire of the day. The trained responders quickly took care of the flames on the concrete pad, and the jokes abounded. It was also a prudent reminder of the most important aspect of success for everyone involved. As the squad sprinted down the runway to take care of the small flare-up, there were no shouts, no questions as to who was doing what, and no tension.

Everyone knew what they were expected to do and moved as one.

(See, it's a little like football.)

"It's cliché to say it's fun, right, but it really is fun, and the biggest thing is the team aspect," pointed out Jessup. "You have to be good. We're a small team.

"We're allotted so many bomb techs from the FBI, so we're a smaller unit. We have 11 certified bomb techs right now, and two assistants, so we're a very tight-knit group. We have to work a lot of events together since there's not a lot of us to spread the wealth, so we all get along, we're all like family, so that's probably the most important part of it, you've got to be able to work well with others."

It was a pertinent lesson for everyone on hand. And by the time Chuba Hubbard set fire to the last explosive charge, blowing up a Saints prop —resulting in a much larger boom than anyone on hand expected and a fitting, exuberant end to the shoot—the spark had been lit for this group of Panthers, now armed with the schedule they will have to face together in hopes of defending their division title.

"This year is the best one yet," gushed Tremble. "This is so cool, man."