Ron Rivera is unapologetic about the state of the NFC South and the Panthers' status as playoff contenders despite their 5-8-1 record.
During a conference call with Cleveland media Wednesday, Rivera ripped the idea of making the playoff system by conference instead of by division.
MORE: Steele's Week 16 picks | Who can clinch a playoff spot in Week 16?
"Then why have divisions?" he said. "The divisions represent an area. If you do that, you take away the potential for anybody in the past that didn't have a good record that did advance in the playoffs."
Rivera, who was an assistant in San Diego at the time, then used the example of the 8-8 Chargers defeating the Colts in an overtime wild-card game in 2008.
"Everybody said, 'They were going to get blown out. They were going to get killed,' " he said. "We turned around and beat the team."
He noted that divisions were created specifically so each division would have a winner and get a chance to go to the playoffs.
"Sometimes when you're in a division, you play against each other, you beat each other up," Rivera said. "What about the team that plays in the division and they're 14-and-whatever and everybody else in the division is below .500. How fair is that? So you're sitting there saying if you just happen to be the best team in a division that's terrible, then you're pretty much guaranteed six wins a year. How fair is that?"
Despite the Panthers' struggles this season, Rivera says he still has the support of the fans and the franchise.
"In our division there's still excitement," Rivera said. "People are going to show up and watch these last couple games. Why? Because that's what the league is trying to do. The league wants there to be interest all the way through. That's what this has created.
"Sure, our record is down. But do our records truly represent how potentially good we could be? What if one of us comes out of this and all of a sudden we're the hot team? Now all of a sudden you get hot and who knows what happens."
Rivera gave the example of Green Bay, which was 8-7-1 going into the playoffs last year.
"I still don't know why people want to say, 'Well, they're getting penalized because they're in a good division,' '' Rivera said. "Well, they're getting helped out because they're in a bad division.
"But that's the way it is. It changes. Every year it changes. If you go back and look at last year, tell me what was last year's best division. So we look at this and we say we need to change, we need to do something different. Well, it's been working pretty good for a long time.
"Apparently somebody doesn't think it's fair. Well, that's part of it, though. That's the way it's set up. We didn't make the rules. So now somebody wants to start changing things because people don't think it's good enough.
"Until that happens, this is the way it is. And I'm not going to apologize for it. I'm really not."