Excerpts from Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera's Friday afternoon meeting with reporters.
Q: Will there be a moment prior to this game to honor what you guys did last year?
RR: "I hope so, whether it's just through the introduction or what have you. For me, it will be. I'll sit there and I'll listen to our crowd when they introduce our players, listen to them get excited.
"The hard thing about what happened to us this year, and I guess the reason I have such an issue with it is - you play the Super Bowl, you lose the Super Bowl. Then they tell you you're going to open up the season against the team you just lost to in the Super Bowl. So for the next five months, I've got to put up with it, deal with it, answer the questions, relive it constantly, over and over and over. Honestly, it becomes a drag. You guys know it cause I got tired of answering the questions and our guys got tired of answering the questions.
"Just think about that: You go through something and it's a huge letdown, but then they tell you, 'You've got to relive it for five more months. Forget the fact that you're defending NFC champs and you deserve to open up at home in front of your home crowd in the opening week. We're going to go ahead and make you guys relive it for five more months.'
"That's how I felt, I really did. I felt like everything we could have hoped for for scheduling that would have really been, to me, a salute to the fact that you won the NFC, they decide they're going to have the two Super Bowl opponents play against each other. I struggled with that, I really did from Day One. I just think that there are so many things that could have been done to honor us and our team, our fans and our city. I thought this would have been a great opportunity to show it, and unfortunately, I feel like we were robbed of that, and we had to wait a whole week to do it. You can tell I'm just disappointed that it didn't work out that way.
"We asked for certain things to help us out. We didn't get any of it. So I'm disappointed, let's be honest. I've got a group of men in there that have done nothing but do the things that we've asked for the last five years. It's been a battle to get to where we are and sometimes I feel disrespected."
Q: Who would you have scheduled for Week One?
RR: "It doesn't matter. If everybody wanted a big Week One game, maybe it could've been Arizona here. A rematch of the NFC Championship game or something.
"But again, we just live through it and we do what we're asked."