Thursday, September 8, marks the first game of the NFL season featuring a Super Bowl rematch between the Denver Broncos vs. the Carolina Panthers at Mile High Stadium. On February 7, 2016 Denver defeated Carolina 24–10 to win their third championship. This is first rematch of two Super Bowl teams playing the Kickoff game since 1970.
The game starts at 8:30 p.m. EST and begins a weekend of festivities in Denver. It is followed by the opening games of the season for all the other NFL teams on Sunday and Monday. The pregame show at 7:30 p.m., NFL Kickoff 2016 presented by Hyundai, will feature performances by Dierks Bentley and OneRepublic. Grammy nominee Andra Day will sing the National Anthem at the opening game.
Can Denver beat Carolina without Peyton Manning?
The question on everyone’s mind is, can Denver repeat the win without Peyton Manning at the helm? In fact, the Broncos will have a new starting quarterback since both Peyton Manning and Brock Osweiler have left the team. But the Panthers still have Super Bowl MVP Cam Newton. Tune in tonight at 8:30 p.m. EST on NBC to find out.
And, be sure to check out MediaMine’s archives which include the Stu Ross Before They Were Pros collection, highlighting footage of NFL stars playing high school football. The collection contains hundreds of hours of current sports legends playing with their high school teams before becoming professionals including The Washington Redskin’s Vernon Davis and the Carolina Panther’s Derek Anderson.