Countdown to 2024 Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement: Julius Peppers

JULIUS FRAZIER PEPPERS was given an athlete’s name.

“I was named after Julius Erving and Walt Frazier,” he explained. “So, you can say I was meant to be playing sports.”

Even before he stepped on a field as a professional football player, people have been likening Peppers to Hall of Fame legends: BRUCE SMITH, LEE ROY SELMON, "DEACON" JONES and LAWRENCE TAYLOR.

But, for Peppers, the journey was his alone.

“I want to be my own player,” he said. “I want to be Julius Peppers.”

He began carving his own path at Southern Nash High School, where his football coach persuaded him to try out for the team. Peppers made only one request: to be a running back. Before long, a 6-foot-5 running back was captivating recruiters from across the country.

The nationwide attention, however, was muffled by the recruiting efforts of a school a little over an hour from his hometown of Bailey, N.C. By 1998, Peppers was a Tar Heel.

While at the University of North Carolina, Peppers retired as a running back and began his dominance as a defensive end. Despite shaking off the Hall of Fame comparisons, he always believed in his own future and success.

“I think I can be the best defensive end in the nation,” he told a Charlotte newspaper in 1999, his second year at North Carolina. When asked how long that might take, he replied, “Not long. Not long at all.”

He was not wrong. That same season, he secured 15 sacks while also playing as a reserve on the Final Four-bound UNC men’s basketball team.

The following year, Peppers was awarded the Bill Willis Trophy, Chuck Bednarik Award and Lombardi Award for his work on defense.

But as the sun set on his UNC basketball career, and his professional football future came into clearer focus, excellence was an expectation.

“His best football is still way out there in front of him,” then-North Carolina head coach John Bunting said.

Greatness was closer than Bunting or Peppers could have imagined.

During his rookie season with the Carolina Panthers, Peppers recorded 12 sacks in 12 games and secured the title of AP Defensive Rookie of the Year. By his second season, he was part of a defense that took the Panthers to their first Super Bowl.

Peppers went on to a stunning NFL career, playing with three franchises across 17 seasons. He recorded 159.5 career sacks, 13 blocked kicks and other staggering displays of defensive mastery.

Panthers defensive lineman Brentson Buckner described Peppers as, simply, “God’s gift to football.”

Even after decades of legendary comparisons and carrying two famous athletes’ names like a prophecy, Peppers’ enshrinement remains overwhelming for him.

“It’s still … hard to wrap my head around it,” he said while visiting the Hall of Fame. “I’m going to be up here with these guys.”