CHARLOTTE — When you ask his players and fellow coaches about new Panthers outside linebackers coach AC Carter, you usually get versions of "intense" and "detailed."

The intense part is obvious by the way he coaches and the fact he's usually beating his players to the weight room for a 5:30 a.m. workout.

The detailed part goes back to his youth, as he was born into a family of educators which goes back generations. As it turns out, he's been building this lesson plan his whole life.

"You have players who have different learning styles, so my biggest thing is how can I relate to his learning style to understand how he could get it and how he has to receive it in his brain," Carter explained. "I could say the same thing three different ways, but it hits each player's brain differently, so I love doing that.

"I come from a teacher background, so that allows me to know how to structure things, how to structure a meeting, and how to put things in perspective for those guys. I definitely come from a background that allows me to know how to structure in a football room, and it's not to be overstructured for the players, right?"

That kind of thought process is natural, considering his origins. When he starts listing off family members in the field back home in New Orleans, it takes a minute to go through them all, from his grandmother, to both parents, his sisters, the list goes on. Teachers, principals, social workers, all of them with a job to reach young minds and get the most out of them.

So that's perhaps a clue to why he's here, and in charge of the group he's in.

Carter has some familiarity with defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero and senior assistant Dom Capers from their time in Denver when he was an entry-level quality control coach. After they left for Carolina in 2023, he went to the Rams as an assistant defensive line coach.

But here, he's in charge of a completely renovated position group, which includes a couple of high draft picks in Nic Scourton and Princely Umanmielen, as well as a newcomer free agent in Patrick Jones II to go along with D.J. Wonnum.

That's a lot of trust to put in a guy who turns 32 this year and is in his first full position coach job, but Evero didn't blink in bringing in the guy he sometimes calls "Andrew" to join head coach Dave Canales and the staff.

"Every now and them he'll call me by my government name," Carter said with a laugh.

But the respect Evero has for the young assistant is evident.

"First of all this guy is off-the-charts intelligent," Evero began. "I knew that from Day 1 when I first got with him. He's a very, very good communicator. He's a very good teacher, and he is so detailed and meticulous in his approach to his players. So the number one thing that I think he does a great job with is that he can connect with his players, and it could be vets, young guys; he just does such a great job of being able to relate with the guys he's working with.

"So I think that guys trust him, they know that he's really good at what he does, they know that he's got their best interests at heart, and so, I think that's the foundation that he develops with the players. And then his acumen in football, obviously, he's going to allow these guys to get to where they are capable of getting to."

So when Carter's asked the most important part of being a first-time position coach with a brand new bunch of players for a team that was 30th in the league with 32 sacks last year, it's probably not a surprise that he begins with something more basic than pass-rush moves.

"I think the first thing is, you're trying to establish the culture," Carter said. "Definitely what coach E and Dave models, the culture and the philosophy of our organization this year. And you just try to emulate that as much as you can to the group. And development, how we can make this group become one, and also establishing who the leaders of this group might be.

"So you never know who it might be. It might be a young guy, maybe an older guy, but definitely pushing the envelope to allow those guys to know that, man, we are servant leaders first, and then everything about this defense starts with us. We drive the bus to everything that we do."

And his teacher's eye for detail even extended to the seating chart, with Evero pointing out that he put a veteran next to each of his two draft picks in the meeting room, with Jones beside Umanmielen and Wonnum next to Scourton.

But he carries that approach through everything he does, from the way he instructs during drills (energetically) to the way he works out to maintain an example for his guys (religiously).

For Carter, it's about showing his players first, so if that means hitting the weight room at 5:30 in the morning, that's what he does.

"I've got to get my work out in," he said. "My body, my mind, my soul together so I can be great for them, so I can lead them in the right direction, having the details and the focus where everything that they need so they could be in a position so they can be successful out here

"I think players have big eyes, and they see everything."

And when they get to the field, they see Carter getting after it, bouncing from drill to drill. Rather than stand in one spot and lecture, he moves from side to side to instruct his edge rushers face-to-face to make sure everyone's getting the full lesson. He's young, so energy is part of what he brings. But it's also part of who he is.

"I think it just comes from the root of why we all started playing the game," he said. "How much it means to us, everything that we need to do on the grass or in the meeting room and the level of detail. We say we want to attack greatness, and we say we want to attack the ball; we say we want to have a certain type of career. That's what my job here is to push them to do.

"When you're working with those guys, they have to feel like you're in it with them, and that's just how I like to do it. How I take care of my body. I work out, I lift. I do the recovery so I can be out here and so I can be intense with them and give them details of how I coach.

"I'm a teacher first, and then I coach it. Then I encourage it, and then the correction happens. So I kind of follow those four pillars of how I always do things with them, and so they understand how we're going to put these things on display so they could be a good football player."