Ron Rivera, ‘Still Bitter,’ Details Challenge For Patriots In Super Bowl Rematch

On the phone with Ron Rivera, I brought up the 2015 season — and its conclusion. If you don’t remember, the Denver Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers 24-10 in Super Bowl 50. Rivera, now the Cal Bears’ GM, was the Panthers’ head coach. A decade later, the fine details of that game remain vivid in his mind. Rivera mentioned an incompletion to Carolina receiver Jerricho Cotchery that he felt was a catch and, in turn, changed the game. “Can you tell, Henry, I’m still bitter?” he asked. Imagine what that must have been like just seven months removed, when his Panthers opened the 2016 NFL season with a Super Bowl rematch. The New England Patriots don’t have to imagine. On Wednesday night to open the 2026 NFL season, the Super Bowl losers have a rematch with the Super Bowl winners in Seattle. Back in 2016, the Panthers traveled to Denver. And Carolina lost, 21-20. Is New England next? “A lot of people say it’s not sour grapes. Well, it is sour grapes,” Rivera told me on Tuesday when asked about having to go through a Super Bowl rematch to open the season. There were moments and details that Rivera did not mention that I found interesting. For example, he didn’t bring up Cam Newton’s infamous fumble, the one that still haunts the QB. Maybe Rivera had remembered — and seen — that moment too many times. The Super Bowl rematch was a controversial decision back then, at least to Rivera, who was outspoken in his discontent. And that’s probably why we haven’t seen the NFL do it again — until now. “I am not going to reflect back on it,” Patriots coach Mike Vrabel said last week. “We say the same thing every time we lose. We got outcoached; we got outplayed. When we win, it is on our players. But that is a long time ago and we will need to play better. We will need to coach better to give ourselves a chance in that environment.” But it’s a Super Bowl loss. You must look at the microscopic things you could have done differently. “The hard part is now New England’s got to relive it,” Rivera told me. The Patriots — with most of the same players — will stand on the field while the Seahawks raise their championship banner. Even if the Patriots tell themselves that this is a new team, new season, new game, the Seahawks will display a reminder of what happened this calendar year. It’s the Seahawks’ right to raise that banner. But it’s almost cruel that the Patriots are the team that has to watch it. “I just didn’t think that it was right to do that,” Rivera said when asked about having a field-level view of the banner ceremony in 2016. “Let them have their moment in front of somebody else. Why do we want to rub it in, even more so? Why do we want to make … the team that lost the Super Bowl relive it?” Rivera said he doesn’t remember the ceremony, admitting he probably did what he could to ignore it. He did, however, speak to his players about how they should handle it — thinking about the upcoming game and the upcoming season despite the pageantry. He also planned for the possibility that the rematch might not go well. It was one of the pieces of advice from the late, great coach John Madden. “He was mentoring me,” Rivera told me. “[Madden] asked, ‘What happens if you lose?’ Because you put so much energy into trying to win that game, trying to avenge what happened. … He said you’ve got to be very careful with it. You’ve got to make sure they’re in the right frame of mind.” For the past few weeks, the Patriots have been rewatching the Super Bowl to prepare for this game. New England also watched the game film immediately after losing in February as part of their normal process. There is no doubt they’re sick of that film at this point. “You really don’t want to see certain parts of that game again, everything from the missed opportunities to …” Rivera trailed off, then added: “I still struggle with that ball that was ruled incomplete for Jerricho Cotchery. That play where the ball hits the ground, according to one referee, and everybody else thought it was a catch. That’s what’s crazy. We see all the replays. You relive that one.” The Panthers went 6-10 in 2016 and finished fourth in their division. It wasn’t simply because of that season-opening matchup, but surely it didn’t help. It would be an absolute stunner if New England did something similar. But this season-opening matchup might not help. The Patriots don’t have to win this game. That’s the truth. But the Patriots cannot let this matchup define the 2026 season. And as Rivera is quick to point out, that’s much more difficult than anyone realizes.