CHARLOTTE — Rookie kicker Ryan Fitzgerald is getting a lot of credit for his knuckleballs and oddball bounces, which have helped the Panthers lead the league in kickoff coverage through three games. Enough so that Patriots coach Mike Vrabel told reporters Wednesday he spent two hours watching tape of it.

But Fitzgerald laughed a little when asked what it's like to watch his coverage unit work, knowing that in the compressed spaces of the new kickoff rules, once he swings his leg, he's pretty much done with the play.

"It feels great knowing that I don't have to do a lot," he joked about his own role in the coverage part. After seeing it go so well for three weeks, really, but especially last week, he's asked if one in particular stands as a favorite.

"We had a lot of good ones," he said with a nod, before describing the third quarter kickoff against the Falcons, which was initially bobbled, fielded, and then engulfed by a swarm of Panthers defenders led by Bam Martin-Scott at the 10-yard line.

"I mean, it was a party at the ball," Fitzgerald said.

And so far this season, it has been a party; and they're all part of the celebration.

The Panthers lead the league in the effective stat to measure success on kickoffs, opponent average drive start.

That number excludes onside kicks (which they're also good at), and they've separated themselves from the league by a wide margin.

With the new kickoff rules, touchbacks go to the 35-yard line, as part of an effort to create more returns. The Panthers aren't inclined to give up that much yardage. So by employing a number of different kicks, they've averaged giving opponents the ball at the 21.1-yard line.

The Rams are second, at 21.6. The fifth-place team is Houston at 27.4, and that 6.3-yard gulf to the Panthers is significant. To go 6.3 yards from the fifth-place team, you fall between 31st-place Las Vegas (33.6) and 32nd-place San Francisco 33.8), and the Panthers are 8.5 yards ahead of the league average.

Opponent's average drive start on kickoffs

So yes, the work the Panthers are doing is quite good. Special teams coordinator Tracy Smith downplayed the ranking and suggested they weren't doing anything unique, and one of his leaders said he wasn't aware of it at all.

"I still don't know," outside linebacker Thomas Incoom said of the ranking. "I mean, we're playing like we're the bottom, that's the mindset we have. We're playing like we're the bottom, and we still have a point to prove, you know, we're going to work as hard as we can and just go out there and have fun with somebody.

"We play with that fire in our heads. That's how we're going to play."

That's one way to describe it. Rookie safety Lathan Ransom describes it as "juice," and it's the kind of thing that has a way of spreading throughout the roster.

"It's exciting, dudes flying around there with a bunch of energy, getting the defense started, we take that as like that's a defensive play," Ransom said. "That's what we do. It's super exciting, a lot of juice, man. Seeing dudes go out there and competing, flying around at all levels in all phases of the game."

Nearby, Mike Jackson nodded. He's not on the kickoff team, but the defense definitely appreciates it when they get to start a drive inside the 20 rather than deeper down the field, because that makes the opposing offenses' jobs that much harder.

"Most of the guys on kickoff play defense, so it's just go out there and it kind of sets the tone for us," the veteran cornerback said. "I look up at the crowd, and it's just a tone. All right, if it's a touchback, cool, but if it's a big hit, it's like it's a little bit more, because now the crowd is into it more, and we feed off that energy like yeah, so it's, it's good for everybody."

To Jackson's point, most of the guys on that unit are in his defensive meetings as well, because tackling is one of the first responsibilities, and that's what they're trained to do. Last week against the Falcons, nine of the 10 guys lining up in front of Fitzgerald were defensive players.

That group included outside linebackers Incoom, Princely Umanmielen, and DJ Johnson, linebackers Claudin Cherelus, Martin-Scott, and Maema Njongmeta, safeties Ransom and Demani Richardson, and cornerbacks Akayleb Evans and Corey Thornton, who rotated in and out of the other spot.

And then there's one of the biggest bodies in the group, Brycen Tremayne, an outlier in many senses of the word.

He stands out in the crowd for reasons other than the fact that he's one of the tallest at 6-foot-4. He also leads the team with five special teams tackles, ahead of Incoom and Martin-Scott with three each and Njongmeta and Evans with two each.

Oh, also, he plays offense.

"That's rare, because most receivers don't want to hit, don't want to get hit," Jackson said with an obvious respect. "Like, he's the complete opposite. So it's dope to see him like in the Arizona game, he had two or three catches, nice catches, and then had like two or three tackles.

"So that's just a complete football player in my opinion."

Cherelus, one of the leaders of the group, said he didn't know what to expect of Tremayne at first, since he wasn't around much of OTAs because of an injury, and then came to training camp and started making plays on offense as well as special teams.

Incoom is the recognized Tasmanian devil of the group, but Tremayne is rapidly joining that conversation when you poll the guys on that unit.

"Obviously, TI stands out. He wants to get down there every play, but for me personally, look at Brycen," Cherelus said. "Obviously, he's an offensive player, so you don't always expect that from an offensive player, but he's getting down there, he's getting dirty, he's making plays, and just his athleticism.

"I'm looking on the other side like, damn, he'd be tough to cover. He doesn't play like a wide receiver on teams. It threw me off the first week. I was like, oh s---. I'm happy for his success, though."

"I mean, I take the compliment, Tremayne said with a grin. "I appreciate those guys, it's definitely something, I just love being on that kick unit with dudes that are just flying around like TI and Claud and Bam, to name a few, and I mean everyone everyone on that team is flying down there. It's just it's so fun, just watching the tape after seeing guys run down and like all of us celebrating, so like you know that's one of my favorite plays every game."

And this week, everyone had a chance to share in it.

During their first team meeting after the Falcons game, Dave Canales devoted an entire segment of the team meeting to kickoff coverage, which is not common in a world where there's an entire team to address.

But the urgency with which they played created some from Canales, too.

"I love the fact that we just went for it and then to have the coverage unit be such that you can put the ball anywhere and these guys are going to run with their hair on fire and if someone's just out of the lane, someone's going to cover for them," Canales said. "And that's all effort as well. It's the assignments, it's talking through what happens if this guy gets out of his lane, we need to make up for it, but then it also just comes down to flat-out effort and guys flying in to show up, or somebody might have gotten doubled.

"We watched all the kickoff coverages as a team. Just to show the spirit of our play-style, I truly believe that kickoff coverage kind of exemplifies who we want to be and that's why I love special teams, but especially on kickoff, especially when you can start the game with a kick to be able to show the effort, the enthusiasm after great places of them celebrating the toughness, playing smart off of each other and then finishing each play."

Seeing that much of the meeting devoted to their world — we're talking like nine minutes of clips of kickoff coverage — was a pleasant surprise to a group that normally doesn't get that kind of attention.

"I've definitely seen some kickoffs in team meetings before," Fitzgerald said. "But not like six kickoffs in team."

When they got to that third-quarter stop that Fitzgerald referenced, Cherelus just broke into a huge smile.

"I think we had six hats on the ball, and I feel like that really shows what type of unit we can be," Cherelus said. "I mean, that's what we want, because I feel like people always forget about special teams, and that can make or break a game.

"People never think about that, just the hidden yardage, the field position. And as a defensive player like I've played teams and starting a game where it's like field position on teams can affect what happens that next drive, so that's pretty cool."

And because the unit is made up of guys who aren't necessarily regulars on offense and defense, there's also a certain camaraderie among them. When you don't fit into the game plan in other ways, finding a way to make an impact begins to create its own momentum, and that starts during the game week. Just as with their converting an onside kick against the Cardinals, the confidence was created during the week before, when they saw what worked on the practice field on Thursdays.

"It really comes from, you know, the week of preparation, you know how we prepare during the course of the week, we attack everything with the mindset of making every play," Incoom said. "And just really just going out there and have fun and you know feed off each other's energy, right?

"I mean, with the kickoff team, with special teams period, you know, we start the game. So we're trying to bring the positive energy to feed into the defense or the offense going on the field."