Julius Peppers is making it painfully clear that he does not want to be a Carolina Panther next season.

Q: If Carolina franchises you within the next week, what would be your recourse at that point? Have you told them you would not be showing up to minicamp or anything of that sort?

Peppers: If they decide to use the tag on me, the first thing I would be doing is requesting a trade. Anything after that is basically, I don’t know. I don’t know what would be the course of action. Basically, we would deal with that when that time comes.

Q: How did things get to this point? After seven years, what is it about the situation in Carolina, specifically, that you want to get away from?

Peppers: Seven years is a long time. Since I’ve been here, I’ve given everything I had. There’s never been a time when I wasn’t giving my all. Basically, it’s a situation I feel it’s a point in my career I just want to do different things. It has nothing to do with anything that happened between me and any coaches, me and the owners of this team. It had nothing to do with anything anybody did. It’s nothing that happened. I just feel like personally for me and m y career, it’s time for a change. That’s pretty much it.

If nothing else, you have to respect Peppers’ honesty. He’s not beating around the bush about what he wants and he’s not handing out any false hope. Some times in life you just need a change and sports are no different. Peppers wants a new challenge and he wants to seek employment elsewhere. If a person in a 9 to 5 said the same thing, a lot of people would respect that. But when it comes to athletes, we immediately want to say they’re not loyal or they’re ungrateful.

I don’t blame the Panthers for trying to do whatever possible to keep him. But it’s going to be tough.