Just over seventh months since the Denver Broncos de-cleated Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50, the two will meet once again to open the season this Thursday.
It’s a tough turnaround for both teams, not the seven-month offseason but the one-week between the final preseason game and the first regular season game.
The week leading up to Week 1 is arguably the hardest week of preparation in football. You don’t just have to prepare for your opponent, but you have to prepare for yourselves; you have to solidify your roster by cutting 22 players and organize that 53-man unit to fight together in short order.
It’s not easy, especially when you’re given two fewer days than the rest of the league.
“We only have a week [to prepare], where other teams will have 10 days that you kind of need to have,” Rivera said, via David Newton of ESPN.com. “It was a mad scramble trying to put your roster together and get your practice squad out there.”
And that’s only the start of the Panthers’ frustration.
They believe they deserve more, better. As the reigning NFC Champions, they don’t want to enter the season on a short week. More importantly, they don’t want to open their season in the Mile High City against the Denver Broncos.
“I think it’s been 20-something years that the Super Bowl rematch, that people like to call it, is going to happen,” Rivera said. “Defending NFC champs, it would have been nice to open the season at home, but it didn’t happen that way.”
Well, the Broncos would probably rather Trevor Siemian takes his first snaps in the NFL against someone other than the Panthers, too, but that’s not how it worked out.
One team, though, will leave happy on Thursday night.