CHARLOTTE — New Panthers center Luke Fortner knows a few things to be unquestionably, undoubtedly true.

"Everyone's butt is different," he said with a straight face.

(More on that in a moment.)

But he also knows that his is now in one of the best places possible.

By signing a one-year deal with a chance to man the middle for the Panthers this year, he knows that when he lines up over the ball, he's got Robert Hunt on one side of him and Damien Lewis on the other.

"Obviously, I've watched them play for a while and always enjoyed watching them and feel like they do a great job," Fortner said of the two massive dudes who will be on either side of him. "One of the coaches said, ' You've got two big dudes next to you,' so I think that'll be obviously exciting to play with those two, and I think we'll have some success."

Beyond the two guards, Fortner is stepping into a line with a significant amount of experience. Even if you don't consider left tackle Ikem Ekwonu, who is recovering from a torn patellar tendon, the Panthers have 385 games of starting experience on the line with him, along with veteran right tackle Taylor Moton and free agent pickup Rasheed Walker.

He saw what that looked like last year as a member of the Saints, which heightened his excitement about getting here, even as the Saints got on a heater late, including four straight wins, including one in his new home.

"It was always, hey, we're going to go in expecting to win this game, but you can never count these guys out — like these guys play hard," he said of the two games against the Panthers last year. "They've got an energy about them that's different than some teams. Some teams, you go in, and you're up, and you're like, all right, we're good. And we knew we couldn't do that with Carolina. And everything I've seen thus far speaks to that, and it's coming to fruition.

"Now that I've talked to these guys around here, I'm realizing where that's coming from, and that's from everybody, whether it's the training staff, coaching, front office, whatever it may be. They are all one-minded and on one single goal, and it's different than anywhere else I've been."

And Fortner has been a few places, just within the last year.

He was drafted by the Jaguars in 2022, but after a preseason game against the Saints on Aug. 17, he was traded back to New Orleans almost immediately upon arriving back in North Florida.

"We were on the flight back to Jacksonville, and we got off the plane, and I got a call, and it's, hey, you're going back to New Orleans," Fortner said. "So I just played in the stadium, and then the next day or two days later, they had a stadium practice, so I was out there in the stadium again just practicing, so it was crazy, it was a blur.

"It's obviously really exciting, and everyone I met along the way was very helpful in the process and made it as easy as it could be, but yeah, it's definitely a whirlwind, right?"

The same could be said of the Panthers' offseason. They added seven free agents from outside, including Fortner. Among that group are the top young pass-rusher in Jaelan Phillips and the top middle linebacker in Devin Lloyd, along with the late surprise addition of Walker.

So that means getting to know a lot of new faces for Fortner. He does have an aunt and uncle who live on Lake Norman, and he's been here long enough to have heard horror stories about I-77. But mostly, he's ready to get in here and learn a new set of teammates.

In addition to being on three teams in the last seven months, he's also learned the old offensive lineman lessons that while no one really grows up dreaming of playing center, everyone is the backup center. Generally, if you're the best offensive lineman on your high school team, you play left tackle. When you get to college, the next-best left tackles become guards, and then the next-best guards (or the smart ones, and Fortner has three degrees from Kentucky, including a master's in mechanical engineering and an MBA) become centers.

So he was a guard for his redshirt year and first four seasons at Kentucky, before another late change of address in college.

"I played guard for five years, and then Liam Coen showed up (in 2021 as offensive coordinator), and he said, ' You're playing center,'" Fortner recalled. "All right, cool. No one really says I'm playing center, but I jumped in, and it went really well, and I was fortunate enough to make it to the NFL off that."

As with most linemen, they snap enough to be able to do it if they have to, but accepting that you're a center now means refining the techniques and being able to communicate the calls across the line.

And then, it's a matter of rote work and learning how each quarterback wants the ball.

"As you get into rhythm and work with guys and work with quarterbacks, I mean, everyone's butt is different," he said with a straight face. "I'm dead serious. Everyone's hands are different. Like, where I snap the ball might be different than where someone else snaps the ball, and some quarterbacks' hands might be further in or back further out. I mean, there's all kinds of little stuff that you would never even consider that goes into it.

"And there's definitely a unique relationship, I'd say, between the center and his quarterback or quarterback and his center. You spend a lot of time together, that's for sure."

With his late-offseason move to the Saints last year, that meant working with Tyler Shough when he was with the backups early in the year. But then, when center Erik McCoy was injured and Shough replaced Spencer Rattler, Fortner was back on the field with someone he had gotten used to working with.

And now, he has an entire offseason to get to know Bryce Young and recognize that he's right in the middle of a talented line, and know that there's nowhere he'd rather be.