Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers set for Super Bowl rematch on opening day of NFL season

The 2016 NFL season will kick off with a Super Bowl 50 rematch between the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers on Thursday, September 8 at Sports Authority Field in Denver.

The 17-week, 256-game regular-season schedule, which concludes on January 1 with 16 division games, was released by the National Football League on Thursday.

The Broncos-Panthers game is the first Super Bowl rematch on the opening weekend of the season since 1970 when the Kansas City Chiefs and the Minnesota Vikings met.

“I think it’s great,” Broncos coach Gary Kubiak said. “It’s a big challenge for our team. It gets our attention really quick.

“We know that we’re going to have to have a really good offseason. We’ve got some changes going on with our football team, but our standard will be the same. We’ll look forward to it.”

Manning successors: Griffin III, Kaepernick and five potential options to succeed Peyton at Denver Broncos

Also on the opening weekend schedule is a clash between conference championship game participants New England and Arizona on Sunday night, September 11.

The Patriots have not played the Cardinals on the road since 2004 and never at University of Phoenix Stadium, where New England has appeared twice in Super Bowls.

In Week 2, the Rams will play their first regular-season game in Los Angeles since moving back from St. Louis after last season, facing off against the Seattle Seahawks in a Sunday afternoon start.

The Minnesota Vikings open their new US Bank Stadium in a Sunday night game during Week 2 against the Green Bay Packers. Minnesota is seeking back-to-back NFC North titles, which was last accomplished by the Vikings in 2008-09.

The annual Thanksgiving triple-header on Thursday, November 24 features the Vikings against the Detroit Lions in the opener, the Washington Redskins at the Dallas Cowboys and then the Indianapolis Colts playing host to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the nightcap.

Most Week 16 games will be played on Christmas Eve with the exception of the Steelers-Baltimore Ravens and the Chiefs-Broncos games on Christmas Day, which falls on a Sunday.

The league’s three games in London will be the Jacksonville Jaguars against the Colts on October 2 at Wembley Stadium, the Rams against the New York Giants on October 23 at Twickenham Stadium, and the Cincinnati Bengals against the Redskins on Oct. 30 at Wembley.

On November 21, the Oakland Raiders and the Houston Texans will travel to Mexico City for the first Monday night game to be played outside the United States.

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Three-day coronation

Royal purification

The entire coronation ceremony extends over three days from May 4-6, but Saturday is the one to watch. At the time of 10:09am the royal purification ceremony begins. Wearing a white robe, the king will enter a pavilion at the Grand Palace, where he will be doused in sacred water from five rivers and four ponds in Thailand. In the distant past water was collected from specific rivers in India, reflecting the influential blend of Hindu and Buddhist cosmology on the coronation. Hindu Brahmins and the country's most senior Buddhist monks will be present. Coronation practices can be traced back thousands of years to ancient India.

The crown

Not long after royal purification rites, the king proceeds to the Baisal Daksin Throne Hall where he receives sacred water from eight directions. Symbolically that means he has received legitimacy from all directions of the kingdom. He ascends the Bhadrapitha Throne, where in regal robes he sits under a Nine-Tiered Umbrella of State. Brahmins will hand the monarch the royal regalia, including a wooden sceptre inlaid with gold, a precious stone-encrusted sword believed to have been found in a lake in northern Cambodia, slippers, and a whisk made from yak's hair.

The Great Crown of Victory is the centrepiece. Tiered, gold and weighing 7.3 kilograms, it has a diamond from India at the top. Vajiralongkorn will personally place the crown on his own head and then issues his first royal command.

The audience

On Saturday afternoon, the newly-crowned king is set to grant a "grand audience" to members of the royal family, the privy council, the cabinet and senior officials. Two hours later the king will visit the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the most sacred space in Thailand, which on normal days is thronged with tourists. He then symbolically moves into the Royal Residence.

The procession

The main element of Sunday's ceremonies, streets across Bangkok's historic heart have been blocked off in preparation for this moment. The king will sit on a royal palanquin carried by soldiers dressed in colourful traditional garb. A 21-gun salute will start the procession. Some 200,000 people are expected to line the seven-kilometre route around the city.

Meet the people

On the last day of the ceremony Rama X will appear on the balcony of Suddhaisavarya Prasad Hall in the Grand Palace at 4:30pm "to receive the good wishes of the people". An hour later, diplomats will be given an audience at the Grand Palace. This is the only time during the ceremony that representatives of foreign governments will greet the king.