Princely Umanmielen isn’t afraid to be himself — on the field, and on social media
The moment Princely Umanmielen was introduced to Carolina Panthers fans — as in, truly introduced — didn’t arrive when he was drafted, or during rookie minicamp, or at any of those other offseason workouts.
It wasn’t even on a football field.
The real introduction of the Panthers’ third-round pick came in the moments after the first training camp practice of 2025, when Umanmielen sped around left tackle Ikem Ekwonu and accidentally knocked the ball loose from third-year quarterback Bryce Young’s arm, and there was a brief scare that Young was hurt.
No fans were present at the practice. But they heard about it. And quickly. “Twitter did its thing,” and within moments of the hit, Panthers followers were posting about Umanmielen with surprise, vitriol, humor — the typically crazed cocktail of whatever you get when something trends on X.
That’s when Umanmielen took the spotlight.
“I seen a Tweet, and I could tell he wasn’t being super serious,” Umanmielen said. He was referring to an X user who told him to get his hands off “my” quarterback. “So I was like, ‘I gotchu.’” Umanmielen responded with a salute emoji.
Later, after some more scrolling and realizing that his hit remained the talk of training camp’s Day 1, he went live on Twitch and shared the quote of the week:
“Everyone is like, ‘Oh my gosh! What does this say about Ickey?!’ Ickey this, Ickey that,” Umanmielen said. “Bro, Ickey is a great offensive tackle. ... I’m just like that!” He crinkled his forehead, faux incredulous, before continuing: “Ickey is a great offensive tackle, bro. I’m just cold as (expletive), fam! Like, there’s not many offensive tackles who can lock me up. Really none, to be honest.”
This is Princely Umanmielen. Welcome to the experience.
Like many pass rushers in the NFL, he’s equal parts confident and relentless on the field. The rookie has made waves already in his first three NFL games. He’s the only Panther with a sack.
Where Umanmielen stands out, however, is off the field. He’s fearless. Loud. A bit boastful, he admitted. Hilarious. Always engaging with fans wherever they are. He’s unafraid to be himself online and “in real life,” as he put it — and in this way, at least in the Panthers’ locker room, he’s one of one.
It’s a choice, no doubt, to invite such engagement; to embrace the madness of sports discourse when it’s so tempting to hide from it.
But hiding, he explained, is simply not him. It’s a choice he made long ago.
“I’m pretty sure all these guys in the NFL and on this team used social media like that at one point,” he told The Charlotte Observer earlier this week. He shrugged. “I just decided that whenever I did make it, I wasn’t going to change. I was going to be the same person. I’m a human being. We’re all human beings, you know what I’m saying? So I might as well be myself.”
Princely Umanmielen’s rise as a social media star
Princely, 23, was born in Lagos, Nigeria, the second oldest of four sons. His older brother is Prince. His younger brother is Princewill. The youngest is Princeton. His grandfather, Princely explained in April, was “a chief or a king of a village” in Nigeria before the country was colonized, so his father, Austin, bestowed names on his sons that kept such a memory alive.
Princely’s name, in football specifically, has traveled far.
It started in Manor, Texas, where Umanmielen grew up. He was a four-star recruit out of Manor High School who played college football at Florida from 2020 to 2023 before transferring to Ole Miss thereafter. At every stop, the now 6-foot-4, 245-pound pass rusher impressed with his speed, his long strides, his torque.
And when he made plays that impressed, he let people hear about it. In practice and online.
Umanmielen said his love of being online — of using different platforms “to troll and be funny and stuff like that” — started in eighth grade. It began on Facebook but then moved over to Twitter for recruiting purposes and has remained there since.
One big milestone came when he transferred to Ole Miss. Lane Kiffin, one of the strongest personalities in all of college athletics, is the head coach there. And he loves using social media — for everything, but mostly for fun. (Just this last week, a viral Tweet was going around about one of Kiffin’s daughters dating an LSU linebacker; LSU and Ole Miss play each other this weekend. Kiffin responded to the whole situation simply: “Take the over.”)
Kiffin made an impression on Umanmielen.
“One thing about a Lane Kiffin football team, he’s never going to try to make you into someone you’re not,” Umanmielen said. “He really lets us be ourselves, have our own personalities. The one thing I love about going to Ole Miss: Kiffin knows how to keep football fun.”
Kiffin-led practices often featured megaphones that players could use to talk trash to the rest of the team. Umanmielen was a regular on the horn, he admitted with a smile.
“He’s not like stuck up or super strict, everything about the football program is fun,” Umanmielen continued. “When you go into that football program or facility, you know you’re going to do something fun that day. He knows how to get back to the work too.”
Umanmielen ... an introvert? No way
Ask Nic Scourton about his fellow rookie pass rusher, and he’ll smile and shake his head.
The two are compared ad nauseam. And understandably so. They’re both good. Among the rookies who have at least 25 pass rush snaps this season, both Umanmielen and Scourton rank in the Top 10 in average “get-off” — the time in seconds it takes to cross the line of scrimmage after the snap. Scourton ranks seventh at 0.88 seconds; Umanmielen ranks first at 0.81.
But the one place they’re different: off the field.
“Princely is just Princely, man,” Scourton said Wednesday. He shook his head and smiled. “A bold personality. He’s going to be himself 1,000% of the time, and I respect the heck out of him for it.”
Just when you’re starting to understand Umanmielen, though — just when you think you got a sense of his free-spiritedness — he flips something on you.
“I’m actually an introvert to be honest,” he said.
Yeah, OK, no.
“I swear to God,” he said. “If you ask anybody on this team, at practice, during the games, I’m the quietest person. I really don’t talk. I guess I have moments. I don’t know how to explain it. I gotta get comfortable.
“At practice, I have yet to talk (expletive) to anybody out here. I’m not that comfortable yet. But if you ask my brothers, anybody, I’m really an introvert. I hate talking to people that I don’t know. You know what I’m saying? I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”
It’s hard to explain, perhaps, because it’s hard to imagine. His online persona doesn’t align with that of an introvert at first glance. After the Cardinals game, for instance, Umanmielen posted a pair of photos: one when Umanmielen toured Oklahoma on a recruiting trip standing next to Kyler Murray, right next to him burying Murray into the dirt for his first career NFL sack. After the Atlanta Falcons 30-0 drubbing, he posted a trio of tweets. The first: a single emoji of a goose-egg. The second: “#justiceforyounghoekoo” ... poking the bear at the Falcons who let go of their longtime kicker in exchange for Parker Romo, who went 0-for-2 in the contest. The third ... and this one made headlines ... was a quote tweet of an Atlanta Falcons post; the Falcons post read “Panthers in sight” — Umanmielen responded with a GIF of a smiling, but famously blind, Stevie Wonder.
Some could argue that the most introverted are often the most clever. Perhaps that’s true. But Umanmielen also has the aforementioned Twitch stream where he speaks to an audience he doesn’t know, where he’s authentically himself. He picked up the pastime in June. How does this all add up?
I tossed out a theory that’s long been espoused by best-selling author and social scientist Susan Cain, among others, that “highly creative people” in both artistic and scientific fields are often introverted. I added on to the possiblity that there’s a difference between being gregarious and being a performer. Umanmielen smiled.
“Hell yeah,” he said.
The comment ignited a thought.
“When I’m around Nic (Scourton), he’s an extrovert. He’s, ‘Hey how you doing?’” Umanmielen said. “Me, I’m just walking straight past them.”
That reminded him of a story: The two hopped on Umanmielen’s Twitch stream one day, and Umanmielen was gabbing like he always does. Scourton, meanwhile, was “nonchalant,” quiet, cool.
“And I was like, ‘We’re the opposite,’” Umanmielen said. “In real life, we’re actually the opposite.’”
It’s hard to believe. Maybe impossible to do so. Also: Doesn’t that count as real life, too?
I brought it all up to him. He answered with a shrug.
“It’s just me, to be honest.”
This story was originally published September 25, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
