CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Jadeveon Clowney’s return to Charlotte, the city “just up the road” from his Rock Hill, S.C., hometown, is a homecoming he has embraced.

But reuniting with another particular player would make it even sweeter.

Clowney, the All-Pro pass rusher the Carolina Panthers signed to a two-year deal earlier this week, told reporters on Friday that he would love to team up with Stephon Gilmore — his fellow Rock Hill native, South Pointe High School graduate and South Carolina Gamecocks legend.

Clowney’s already asked Gilmore about the prospects, he said.

“Yeah, I’m trying to get him to pull up,” Clowney said of Gilmore with a big smile. “I was like, ‘We gotta do the Rock Hill thing over, the South Carolina thing over. Trying to get him to come home with me again and have some fun.”

Clowney said he reached out to Gilmore before he signed to ask him what it was like to play for their childhood NFL team, considering it being so close to their childhood friends and family. Gilmore signed with the Panthers in October 2021 — a successful if brief tenure for the 2019 Defensive Player of the Year cornerback.

“Before I signed, I did talk to Stephon, and he was like, ‘I’m trying to get them to sign me back too,’” Clowney said of his conversation with Gilmore. “And I was like, ‘Now I’m gonna sign this contract now, and you’re telling me when I sign, you’re gonna come.’ And he was like, ‘We gonna see, man.’ ”

It might be an understatement to say Rock Hill would be “delighted” if Clowney and Gilmore played for the Carolina Panthers at the same time. Clowney and Gilmore, of course, are two of the biggest names to come out of the city of 70,000 just south of Charlotte and are huge reasons why the city dubs itself “Football City, USA.” Gilmore’s days as a Stallions quarterback and defensive back are stuff of statewide legend. And Clowney’s high school mixtape is of national lore.

Most football fans of a certain generation remember Clowney’s barrage of highlights — of the No. 7, red-jersey-wearing mammoth charging through opposing offensive linemen as if they were helpless fish in a ship’s path. And those highlights don’t even include that helmet-popping-off hit in the Outback Bowl in 2013 while he played for South Carolina, which pops up on the timelines of every dutiful Gamecocks football fan at least once a week.

Clowney and Gilmore reuniting would also delight Panthers fans.

Clowney, for one, had a career year in Baltimore in 2023 — a season that he called his “Kobe year” — in which he notched 9.5 sacks. The NFL veteran also added two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery and added to his prowess as a run-stopper, something this overachieving Panthers defense struggled with at times last year.

The season with the Ravens, Clowney said Friday, was a resurgent year after a difficult ending with the Cleveland Browns mired by injury — playing 12 games with a torn tricep on top of “all the stuff going on with my elbow.” It was also punctuated by a public falling out with the team. In an interview with cleveland.com, Clowney said the he didn’t feel appreciated and that he was “95 percent” sure he wasn’t coming back for a third season. That resulted in Clowney being sent home before the season ended with head coach Kevin Stefanski explaining to reporters, “Nothing comes above the team.”

“I never really got to really respond to that,” Clowney said Friday. “Or say anything about what was said. I just swallowed that and went to work and got back to grinding and working out. And I said, I just need one opportunity to show these people that I can still do this at a high level, and that I’m not the guy (the story) tried to make me out to be. So that’s all I wanted to do that whole offseason, and prove that to people.

“And Baltimore gave me the opportunity to come back and play. And I said, ‘I’m just gonna try to make it a comeback year that everybody will remember.’”

Gilmore’s return would surely excite Panthers fans, too. The team is in need of cornerback depth after the departures of CJ Henderson and Donte Jackson. The Panthers re-signed Troy Hill and picked up Dane Jackson, who general manager Dan Morgan advocated for in Buffalo’s front office years ago, but more could be done at the position.

Acquiring Gilmore, 33, would be tricky and wouldn’t necessarily align with the team’s free-agency strategy of picking up young talent who’ve played under defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero before. (Of course, one key exception to this rule? Jadeveon Clowney.)

Clowney ultimately called playing for the Panthers “a blessing.” After all, this was the team of Julius Peppers, his favorite NFL player growing up that inspired him to switch from running back to defensive end in the city of Rock Hill’s youth leagues. This was the team right down the road from where his mother still lives — where his kids, Jahlil (9) and Jerzie Ane (4) and Jewel Blaise (3), could visit their grandmother’s house with ease.

And now, in the present, it’s a team with potential, Clowney said.

“I think we can turn this thing around and have a good time here,” Clowney said. “And you know, look for something great for this upcoming season. The division was tight last year, regardless of what people think, and there’s no reason the Panthers can’t come out on top for the division this year and make the playoffs.

“And then once you’re in the playoffs, anything can happen.”

That “anything can happen” mantra still applies to free agency. It might, too, extend to Gilmore — the Rock Hill native still on the market.

Notes

— In transational news, the Panthers agreed to terms on a one-year deal to bring back linebacker Tae Davis. Davis was a special teams playmaker for the unit in 2023.

— Some key dates for the Panthers’ offseason program include April 8 (first day); April 23-25 (voluntary minicamp); May 20-21, 23, 28-29, 31 and June 3-4 and 6 (OTA offseason workouts); and June 11-13 (mandatory minicamp).

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