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NFL coaches don’t relish playing Thursday night games after playing on a Sunday. Most don’t mind the idea of starting the season on a Thursday.

Panthers coach Ron Rivera doesn’t share that viewpoint.

“We only have a week [since the preseason finale to prepare] where other teams will have 10 days that you kind of need to have,” Rivera said, via David Newton od ESPN.com. “It was a mad scramble trying to put your roster together and get your practice squad out there.

“I think it’s been 20-something years that the Super Bowl rematch, that people like to call it, is going to happen. Defending NFC champs, it would have been nice to open the season at home, but it didn’t happen that way.”

Actually, it has been 46 years since the season began with a Super Bowl rematch. In 1970, the Vikings and Chiefs met during the opening week of the first season of the AFL-NFL merger. This year, the Panthers head to Denver, right out of the gates.

Rivera makes a good point about the defending NFC champion deserving a home game to start the season, too. Still, the Panthers had to face the Broncos on their own field at some point this year. Isn’t it better for the game to come right away, when the Broncos are breaking in a second-year seventh-round pick who has never thrown a pass in a regular-season game?

Between early September and December, it makes more sense to face the Broncos now. Yes, it imposes extra short-term obligations on both teams. But the Panthers will emerge from the game with 10 days to get ready for back-to-back home games against the 49ers and Vikings. There’s also a good chance the Panthers will emerge from the game with a record of 1-0.