A humble coach Ron Rivera hopes his Panthers learn from their 24-10 defeat to the Broncos, who he felt were deserving winners of Super Bowl 50.
The Panthers fell behind in the first quarter and never recovered Sunday, with a strong Broncos defense matching a Super Bowl record of seven sacks.
MORE: Best images from Super Bowl 50 | Panthers' Spanish broadcast, Ron Rivera no novelty act
Rivera said he felt Gary Kubiak's team stopped them from performing at their best, but wants the NFC champions to learn from the defeat and make a swift return to the showpiece game.
"[The Broncos] played their way today, and that's why they won the football game. They did some really good things," Rivera said. "We didn't capitalize on the opportunities we had and because of that, they won the football game.
"So we have an opportunity to grow and learn from this experience. We need to learn from this experience and give ourselves an opportunity to get back here."
The Panthers committed four turnovers at Levi's Stadium, with quarterback Cam Newton fumbling twice — the first of which resulted in the opening touchdown for Malik Jackson — and throwing one interception, but Rivera denied the team suffered from nerves and praised the NFL MVP's performance.
"No, I wouldn't say that [we were nervous]. I would just say we missed opportunities. We tried to put it in position to make plays and we had to look into other ways to put them into position to make plays.
"Pass rush was strong for them, and unfortunately we didn't capitalize when we got the ball down near our red zone. We can't turn the ball over in our own red zone.
"They were able to shut down our running game. Again, we weren't able to mix it up and have success.
"I thought [Newton] played pretty well. We've got to make plays when we get the chance and we have to put them in position to have success. Obviously, it didn't work in our favor this week."