Carolina’s JJ Jansen will become the NFL’s all-time record holder for games played by a snapper on Sunday.
The Panthers-Eagles game will be Jansen’s 282nd, breaking a tie with Trey Junkin for the most games played by a long snapper in NFL history.
The 40-year-old Jansen was undrafted long at Notre Dame and then signed with the Packers as an undrafted free agent in 2008, but played only in the preseason, spending the regular season on injured reserve. In 2009, the Panthers needed a long snapper, so they traded a conditional 2011 draft pick for Jansen. He has been their long snapper ever since.
The long split is a skill few players ever learn, and most who do have a story of a football mentor who taught them the technique that can earn them playing time on the high school varsity team, a college scholarship for a few and NFL fortunes for a select few. For Jansen, that mentor was his father, who had been a high school student.
“I still remember we practiced the same way every time,” Jansen said, per Darin Gantt of Panthers.com. “We had like a square piece of grass that was maybe 20 meters by 20 meters. My father was standing 15 meters away and I snapped at him. We’d have those legendary long nights where you’re good, and then you stink, and then you’re good, and you stink, and you’re mad at yourself because you stink, so you yell at your dad, and he’s yelling at you, and, you know, it’s all, you know, sons and their father moments.
Jansen has played the second most games of any active player behind only Ravens linebacker Calais Campbell, who has played 283 games. If both Campbell and Jansen play all 17 games this season, by the end of the year Campbell will have played 295 games, tying him with Darrell Green for 16th most in NFL history, and Jansen will have played 294, good for 18th most in NFL history.
All 281 of Jansen’s games have been with the Panthers. Former Lions tight end Jason Hanson holds the NFL record for most games played with one team, with 327. If Jansen continues to play every game in Carolina, he will pass Hanson in the final game of the 2028 season. Jansen is showing no signs of slowing down.