Create a 10-word scroll-stopping headline for: AJ Dillon on Luke Combs, Bo-Berry biscuits, and the journey to becoming a Charlottean  | Vibe NC

Doing his part for the Panthers will also present Dillon with a Charlotte special challenge that his previous stints in Green Bay and Philadelphia did not: heat. After years of being a cold-weather back and enjoying the mild offseason temperatures that came with such, this past week of 90-plus temperatures has been a wake-up call for the back.

“All the basics that you would imagine, electrolytes, carbs, all that good stuff, good sleep,” he said of how to prepare. “But no, I think it’s—I try to gamify everything in my life…like being in the cold always, I feel like it’s definitely an advantage if we had to play somewhere in the cold, going up north at the end of the year. I played in that for years. That’s my second nature.

“I feel like being down here, I played a game here in Carolina, maybe go down to Tampa for one game, and then you’re gone. Jacksonville for one game, and then you’re gone. So now just kind of hitting some of these 90-degree days, like, ‘OK, well, this is different.’

“I’m like, ‘OK, well, how much better can this make me as a player if I have the stamina to go ahead and run through this full force, but then we have a cold game, and I can do that, I can do this.

“It’s a real fun experience for me, just kind of being in an environment that I’m not used to, in just kind of the heat, and I’m like, I’m going to bring it on, let’s see how good I can get.”