By Joesph Person / Charlotte Observer

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - After drafting a punter last month, the Panthers added another one Monday, according to the Charlotte Observer.

The Panthers signed veteran punter Nick Harris, who was with Jacksonville last season, to a one-year deal, Panthers general manager Marty Hurney said Monday night.

Harris, 33, will compete with sixth-round pick Brad Nortman, the former Wisconsin punter.

Harris averaged 42.7 yards on 72 punts last year for the Jags, with 13 punts downed inside the 20-yard line. He had recently re-signed with Jacksonville, but was released after the Jags took ex-Cal punter Bryan Anger in the third round.

Harris has averaged 42.5 yards over 11 seasons while punting for three teams.

The Panthers were looking for a punter after releasing Jason Baker in March in a move dictated by the salary cap. Baker, who had been with Carolina since 2005, was due to make $1.55 million this season with a cap figure of nearly $2 million.

Nortman and Anger were the only punters drafted this year.

Harris is a former staff instructor for Ray Guy Prokicker.com kicking camps.

By Joseph Person / Charlotte Observer

With Jason Baker being released less than a week ago, it appears the Carolina Panthers may use the draft to find a future puner.

The highest a punter has been selected in the last 10 years was Nick Harris, who was a fourth-round selection out of California in 2001.

Now, 11 years later, there's another Cal punter in he mix.

Bryan Anger, who has both a booming leg and great directional skills, is considered a top NFL prospect. The Panthers may be in line to draft him as a special teams weapon.

Anger averaged 44.3 yards per punt for the Golden Bears. Eighteen of those were 50 or more yards. He also pinned 19 punts inside the 20-yard line.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The Carolina Panthers have re-signed long snapper J.J. Jansen to a four-year contract extension.

The team announced the deals Wednesday. Financial terms of the deals were not released.

Jansen was set to become restricted free agents on March 13.

Jansen has had only one bad snap in three seasons with Carolina. He's handled snapping duties on more than 400 punts, field goals and extra points since being acquired in 2009 in a trade with the Packers.

Jansen's agent Paul Sheehy says, "J.J. wanted to get this done before free agency and he's certainly excited about returning to the Panthers."

New Orleans Saints Examiner

The one real injury to come out of Sunday night's 40-20 victory over the Oakland Raiders was one at an important position, and that's kicker.

Garrett Hartley's injury is what was called a "tweaked hip" by coach Sean Payton, but with the severity of his injury unknown, the New Orleans Saints are close to signing kicker John Kasay.

Former Carolina Panther, Kasay was let go just before training camp and it is at least expected now that Hartley may miss some time if the Saints are thinking of bringing him in.

Kasay is 41 years old, but was let go for another former Saints kicker, Olindo Mare. It was thought that Mare had a stronger leg and could handle kickoffs as well as field goal and point-after attempts.

In New Orleans, punter Thomas Morstead handles kickoffs so Kasay wouldn't have to worry about that.

NBCsports.com

Jimmy Clausen got some attention a few weeks back when he said (with a smile) that he wasn’t going to easily give up his number (or job) to Cam Newton.

Panthers punter and NFLPA rep Jason Baker, who has heard the issue brought up a few times locally, is tired of the topic.

“I certainly hope that the guy who takes the snaps this fall at quarterback is more interested in the playbook and running an offense than he is the shirt that he wears over his pads,” Baker told the Charlotte Observer.  ”I’d like to win some games this fall.  It’s more fun that way.”

Awesome. Baker could potentially get embroiled in this vital controversy because he wears No. 7. That’s the jersey Clausen reportedly wanted when he came to the team last year, but Baker wouldn’t give it up.

“I have no intent to change jerseys and haven’t been approached to do so,” Baker said.

We feel Baker’s pain.  Everyone is just a little crankier in a lockout.

Jason Baker’s name, naturally, is on the T-shirts for his Pro Football Mini-camp.

He’s the NFL player – currently a punter for the Carolina Panthers – who is the face of the program.

But he wanted his name removed this year. Or at least to share the spot with others who are pivotal in organizing and running his yearly camp for grades 6-8 in Fort Wayne.

Namely, Edmond O’Neal.

“His name could be on it just the same,” said Baker, while watching the football portion of his camp Saturday afternoon at Concordia High School. “What he does year-round is just very impressive, and we’re going to continue to lean on him more and more.

“He’s been a godsend for me because he’s somebody I can just, ‘I need X,’ and I get three X from him. Or I’ll be like, ‘I think I need this.’ He’ll come back, ‘I did that already and I did X, Y and Z because you didn’t think about that.’ He’s way ahead of the game.

“Everyone is so focused on me, but he’s actually the example of what we’re talking about.”

O’Neal, 29, grew up in Flint, Mich., and without getting into specifics, he said he was a “really bad” kid, succumbing to some of the lures a tough neighborhood can offer. He didn’t listen when family tried to instill in him responsibility, accountability, good judgment. But then he found football – “I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so I went there” – and he was good. He eventually landed a scholarship at Stanford as an offensive linemen. A fractured neck ended his career, but by then, he’d finally grasped what mattered.

“Once you remove yourself from your environment, it kind of forces you to make some decisions about who you are and what you believe in. In doing so, it opened my eyes to so many things that I excluded myself from unknowingly,” O’Neal said. “That is pretty much when I began to realize how much I actually owed people for the things that I’d been able to accomplish and the guidance I had been attempted to be given my whole life. I had a responsibility to give back because people had given to me that didn’t have to.”

He got his chance to have an effect on Fort Wayne in 2008, soon after moving to the city with his wife, Alicia. Edmond O’Neal crossed paths with Baker by helping supply volunteers for the camp. Baker was impressed, and when an opportunity opened to help with the camp, he called O’Neal.

O’Neal jumped all in because the camp emphasized his mission: Equipping young kids with a viewpoint and skills so they have a fundamental understanding of what is right, who they are and how they should act.

And O’Neal oversees it all – the coaches’ clinic Friday night, the community service project Saturday morning and the football part of the camp Saturday and Sunday.

camp board member Tracie Martin called O’Neal a “mastermind,” especially when it comes to coordinating and organizing the community service aspect of the camp. O’Neal has to organize the sites – there were six this year – as well as the transportation.

Four buses were parked near Wayne High School Saturday morning. O’Neal watched kids line up to register and receive jerseys, shorts and a draw-string backpack filled with goodies.

Then he looked at his watch – 8:10 a.m. He checked in on the buses, came back to a line of kids waiting, looked at his watch again, saying to himself under his breath, “Have to get ready to go.” It was 8:31 a.m. He wanted the buses to get out by 8:45. It was closer to 9:10.

O’Neal never showed any visible irritation despite the late start. Or when he got a call on one of his two cellphones later saying a bus needed guidance on where to drop kids off.

Later, he said he was already thinking ahead to ways to avoid a slow start next year. But he didn’t show a trace of disappointment. And that’s the demeanor those associated with the camp have come to expect and admire.

“He’s probably the best thing that’s ever happened to this camp,” said Jason Baker’s mother, Mary, who has been involved with the camp since its inception and was at Wayne helping kids check in Saturday morning. “He’s just very easy going, is great with the kids. Edmond is the one that makes it happen, makes it go, makes it work. He’s kind of the hammer behind the nail.”

Baker is a Prokicker.com Ray Guy kicking Academy alumnus.

By David Ching / Athens Banner-Herald

John Kasay came of age in exactly the right time period in Athens.

The son of a Georgia football coach, Kasay grew up in the university's athletic dorm and was acquainted with many of the Bulldogs' stars from championship clubs. He played for Clarke Central in coach Billy Henderson's heyday, winning the state championship in 1985. And he played for Vince Dooley at the end of his illustrious career at UGA.

It was the perfect incubator for a football passion - and the 41-year-old Kasay has ridden that opportunity to a 20-year NFL career as a place-kicker with the Seattle Seahawks and Carolina Panthers, already one of the longest tenures in league history.

Kasay visited his hometown Tuesday as the guest speaker at the Athens Touchdown Club meeting, before which he sat down with Banner-Herald sports editor David Ching for an interview.

As the Carolina players' union representative, Kasay on Tuesday morning became the first NFL player to report to a team's facility since U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson lifted the owners' lockout on Monday.

He spoke of that decision, the NFL's tense labor situation and his football life in the interview. Here's what he had to say:

I saw a story today saying you reported to the Panthers' training facility today.

Well, we're in a labor conflict and the judge in Minnesota issued a ruling (Monday), which opened the doors for us to return. And so with the years of service that I have, and knowing the people in the organization like I do, to be able to have the opportunity to (return), it's the step that we had to take. So I went in early, just so that we could go through the steps in the process. It was nothing eventful. I was able to turn right back around and get in the car and come here.

So what did you do?

What happens is when you have a ruling like this with the judge, it's interpreted differently by both sides. The players see it one way and the owners see it another, so until we get clarification on exactly what steps are open to be take, it was just an opportunity for me to speak with the people in our organization from management side, how they see it. We stated both sides and said, 'OK' and we'll talk again.

I'd imagine that somewhere along the line in your career, there has been a labor issue, but there hasn't been as big of a conflict. How do you see this going?

One of the neat things is, I came into the league in 1991 and there was a big labor issue that blew up in 1987 and wasn't settled until 1993. I've played all these years with labor peace, and it has been I think by far the best years of the NFL. And so it's sad that we've kind of evolved into this situation. It's gonna be a while. It's gonna be a protracted issue. This is not something that's gonna be resolved in a 15-minute conversation. Unfortunately it's probably gonna take a while.