PHILADELPHIA — JJ Jansen got a standing ovation for breaking a record.

But it wasn't exactly the way you'd expect.

With the emphasis on the but. Or butt, as it were.

The celebration of him becoming the league's all-time leader in games played by a long snapper was sweetened by the fact the Panthers beat the Eagles 25-14 on Sunday. But the appreciation of those around him was on full (moon) display the night before.

See, the 40-year-old Jansen leads the players-only special teams meeting the night before the game at the team hotel, and has the clicker to go through the images they need to see to be ready before the game.

Except special teams coach Tracy Smith intervened without Jansen's knowledge and included an image of Jansen in full long snapping pose, with his rear facing the assembled masses, encouraging the players to applaud.

"So last night Tracy slipped into our special teams meeting tape, a picture of me bent over snapping a ball with my hindquarters facing the screen," Jansen said with a laugh after the win. "And it said 'Everyone give him a standing ovation' on the screen. So the guys gave me a standing ovation. By the time I had fully read it, I realized that he had also put in there, 'Nobody has bent over in an NFL game more than this guy. He wants you to give him a standing ovation.'

"So it was about as on par with what we do in our special teams room, as you'd expect. . . . It's been handled appropriately, in that I feel very seen, and also, it's not too serious."

Of course, it's as serious as an all-time long snapping record ought to be. You don't play for 18 years, until the age of 40, without doing something right.

But celebrating with a practical joke was perfect. Everybody was laughing, unless Jansen went full Alexander the Great — "When JJ Jansen surveyed the breadth of his kingdom, he wept, for there were no more worlds left to conquer." (Or maybe that was someone else, during the pregame show on the Panthers Radio Network.)

Either way, among long snappers, he's now the king. His 282 games are one more than Trey Junkin, the former Cardinals snapper he watched as a boy growing up in Phoenix.

So to be able to enjoy that moment was definitely worth seeing your own rear in 4K on a big screen.

"He tried to skip by that real fast," safety Isaiah Simmons said with a laugh. "And we were like, 'Whoa, whoa, what's going on here, JJ?'

"But no, it was cool to see the actual statistic. He's the man."

Other players continued the joke by saying "No comment," when asked about the meeting-room prank, but they all seriously admire the guy too.

"Pure excitement, man," tight end Feleipe Franks said. "He's like a pillar. I've always thought JJ was  a great player, and an even better person, so you can't ever not be excited for him.

"I think it goes from the work that he puts in, and just his presence. I think that you feel a sense of comfort when you're out there every time, because he's always on top of everything; he's seen every look. He's done it for so long. There's that sense of comfort that you know if we're in the wrong or something's wrong, he'll get us right.

"And so, you know, he's just that pillar. It's always excitement for him because he's even a better person. So I love him."

Once the game started, Jansen didn't have to wait long for his moment. They won the coin toss (one of his favorite activities), and drove into position for a 47-yard field goal by Ryan Fitzgerald early in the first quarter to open the scoring.

Veteran punter Sam Martin, a mere child of 36 years, said they were all glad Jansen set his record on a kick rather than a punt, so the three of them who spend so much time together could enjoy it as a group. But it slipped by them at first.

"I didn't talk about it at all," Jansen said. "And in fact, Ryan came up, we're getting ready for the second drive, so we hadn't punted yet. We're getting ready for the second drive, and Ryan goes, 'I just want to let you know, I feel honored that I was on the field when you broke the record.' And I said, 'I'll be real honest, Ryan, I forgot I had done that.' And Ryan goes, 'Oh yeah, I mean, I forgot too,' and I kind of hit Sam and said, 'You better lock in.' I think we all kind of forgot.

"You get into the rhythm of the game, and you forget what you're doing. But it's a moment. So they reminded me, and it felt good. I got to sort of just feel the moment. You know, you're in a football game."

Martin also called it "an honor" to be there when it happened.

"The guy is a legend, and it was fun," Martin said. "What he's done, it's incredible. And honestly, if you didn't know his age, you wouldn't know his age. Like, he actually, he's got a young soul, and he's obviously still producing at a high level. So it's great to watch; it's inspiring, really. I'm five years behind him, and it makes me want to keep going. He shows me every day how to keep going. So it's an honor to play with him, and I'm lucky to have him as a snapper."

After the win, there was so much to celebrate, so it wasn't like Jansen's milestone was the only thing people were happy about.

"We shouted him out last night, too," safety Nick Scott said with a knowing laugh. "It was going to be a big day for him, and then we shouted him out again after the game. But JJ is so humble, man. Obviously he doesn't really want a whole bunch of attention on him as a long snapper, and stuff like that. Which just makes it more fun to congratulate him and show him some love for that.

"But that's no small feat, man. It takes a lot to play that many games in this league."

Jansen compared the scene to when he broke his friend and former kicker John Kasay's franchise record for games played with his 222nd, which came during a 2022 win at Seattle for a team that was trying to scrape together a playoff run with an odd lot of characters.

Now, the Panthers were mixing and matching personnel all over the place, with injuries making a hash of both the defensive and special teams lineups (ace Thomas Incoom left the locker room in a boot, forcing them all to adjust, and injuries to starting cornerbacks turned usual contributors like Akayleb Evans into starters on defense). But others stepped up, including practice squad running back Anthony Tyus III, who forced the Eagles into a 9-yard punt with his near-block. And the offense did just enough, with Bryce Young having an off day for him, but still managing a pair of touchdowns and 281 passing yards.

"It's like when I passed John; we had a lot to celebrate," Jansen said. "We had a lot of sacks, blocked punts. Bryce was fantastic, but they celebrated me in here and announced it, and there were a few smatterings of 'He's old' when  Dave announced that I broke the NFL record."

When it was over, Jansen was able to exhale and enjoy it. But always with the specialists, and always with Jansen, there's a tinge of humor under it all.

He said before the game, assistant equipment manager Danny O'Toole came up and wondered aloud about the worst-case scenario.

"Everyone that congratulated me on Friday and Saturday, I kept thinking in the back of my mind, I better not break a shoelace going to the game, you know," Jansen laughed. "Danny asked me, 'Has there ever been a game where you didn't snap just because the game went on that way?' And then he said, 'I would hate that we would go to all this trouble and it doesn't actually count.' So that was the general vibe.

"I felt it way more sitting here after a win with everything going on than I did at any point today on the field."

At least when he was sitting there in a victorious locker room, no one had to see the view of him that he's shown the world so often.

But now, he's the all-time record holder for his particular specialty. If that means being the butt of a few jokes, he'll take that.