CHARLOTTE — Make it 277, and counting.

The longest-serving player in franchise history is coming back for his 18th season, as JJ Jansen signed another one-year deal with the Panthers on Tuesday.

That will bring him back for another season, but this one's special because he just turned 40.

He still has a ways to go before he could break George Blanda's record for oldest player in league history, since the former Raiders quarterback and kicker played until he was 48.

Prior to the playoff appearance last season against the Rams (he was one of just two players on the roster to ever play in the postseason for the Panthers since the last appearance in 2017), Jansen said he was convinced he'd get back to the postseason and wanted to continue.

"I've never had a doubt," Jansen said prior to the playoff game. "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."

Jansen is 27th on the all-time games played list, with 277, and would move into the top 20 all-time if he plays the entire season. Marcedes Lewis (290 total), who came back at age 41 to play five games for the Broncos last year, and Calais Campbell (278) are the only active players ahead of him on the list.

He broke his old friend and mentor John Kasay's previous franchise record of 221 games in 2022, and has kept going, with no sign of slowing down.

"He's everlasting," special teams coach Tracy Smith half-joked late last season. "He's doing great, he's having an unbelievable season; He can do this for as long as he wants to. 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."

Old jokes aside, Jansen's steadiness and commitment to the process (he's a three-time team captain) have a value for a young team, beyond the clean operation on kicks and punts.

"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 now, the stories will continue, and Jansen will continue to write his own, as he enters a new chapter.