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Mostly wrong.PonyExpress said:No you're wrong. The SB champion played a rematch of the Conference Champion in the opening game of the season in those years, if possible on the standard schedule. Hence, 2002: NE vs. Pitt, 2003: TB vs Phi, 2004: NE vs. Indy. The league changed the system in 2005 for the Pats, because neither Pitt, nor Indy wanted to do it anymore. So they settled on 2005: Phi vs. Atlanta. If Indy had won the SB in 2003, the Pats would have opened in Indy on Thursday Night in 2004.
The #1 rule the NFL follows now for scheduling the first game of the season is it's the SB winning team AT HOME. They pick the best game from those home games. In 2004 the Indy game was obviously the best, as a rematch. In 2005 the Indy game may have been the best in some ways but it would have been much less interesting to do it 2 years in a row and Randy Moss' trade to Oakland created interest. This year the MIA @ PIT game was judged the most interesting since it was *obviously* a preview of the AFCCG
If Indy had won the SB in 2003 they would have still played here in 2004, that part was fixed years earlier. They just wouldn't have opened the season with us.