DJ Moore, Donte Jackson taking a shared past into a new future together in Carolina

As they’ve grown together here, they’ve bridged those surface differences.

Jackson said before he met Moore, he could tell from watching film during the pre-draft process that he was intense.

“My first impression was that he was a dog,” Jackson said. “I remember saying to guys I was training with, ‘He’s like a running back with the ball.'”

Once they met, and began to talk — with Jackson doing most of the talking — they realized they had more in common than the coincidence of being drafted to the same new city.

“It was a minute, it was a while during our rookie year that I was one of the only people DJ would talk to,” Jackson said. “Just getting to know him, knowing his mom, his family. Our upbringings are sort of similar. I’m coming from New Orleans, he’s coming from Philly. I think it’s like regardless of our personalities, but what we’ve been through in our lives is what knits our friendship and knits our brotherhood.

“Whether I’m screaming or he’s being quiet, beyond all that, we understand each other.”

And now, as they put pen to paper to pledge the next few years together, they look forward to that bond becoming stronger, and delivering on all those dreams they had when they walked in here as rookies in 2018, not knowing how things would unfold.

“I’ve been dreaming of this moment since I got to Carolina,” Jackson said. “I used to watch guys who had been here like Thomas Davis, and think man, they love him out here, he can’t go anywhere without someone knowing who he is. He can’t run on that field without people going crazy screaming for him. I used to think, I want to be that guy, I want to be the person everyone knows here for being a great person and the guy in the community and also being a great football player.

“Knowing that this is going to be my home, and this is going to continue, I can’t explain it.”

What he knows is that he gets to do it alongside Moore, as they hope to lead this team into the future.