CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Charlotte Agenda editor-in-chief Michael Graff can hardly wrap his head around the way the city he calls home looks during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I thought about how strange it is that everything is so quiet now," Graff said.

Graff was approached by the Carolina Panthers to put his thoughts on paper, to be the basis for a video the team wanted to release.  The debut came Friday, thanks to a collaborative effort between Graff and Charlotte-based production company 2WAVES Media.

The final piece of the puzzle was finding a narrator.

Enter Julius Peppers.

The future football Hall of Fame lock lent his voice to the project, and after whittling down a script from roughly 400 words to approximately 150, the two-and-a-half minute video was born.  A wonderful mix of drone shots soaring over various landmarks in both North and South Carolina, mixed with play-by-play calls from the sports world, blended together beautifully. It was Peppers, the native North Carolinian, that tied it all together.

Said Graff, "He embodies so much of the spirit of the Carolinas that it would be perfect for him, so thankfully, he said "yeah."  I got the first cut yesterday, ya know my heart almost stopped just hearing him talk, because you got the feeling that he felt it."

Stay-at-home orders in both states have placed residents in strange circumstances.  There are no large gatherings.  No sporting events to go to. All coming at a time when the weather shifts from nice to simply gorgeous.  Staying indoors is the last thing many people want to do, but Graff says if we wait things out, we'll get back to doing those things sooner, rather than later.

"That's what I hope people feel as they leave this," Graff explained.  "It's a reminder that we're all going through this in our own places, but we're all a part of this bigger place, which is North and South Carolina."

WATCH: