ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — HBO’s series “Hard Knocks” has become a training camp rite of passage, a symbol that football is just around the corner, and from a consumer standpoint, fantastic television—save for episode 1 of this season with the Raiders, which was a giant let down.
On the flip side, though, there’s a reason that NFL owners set up a series of guidelines that can exempt teams from being forced to appear on the show: Football organizations play everything close to the vest, meaning having a camera on everything they do is highly uncomfortable.
Teams can be exempt from being on the show if they meet any of the following criteria:
1) They have a first-year head coach.
2) They have a playoff berth in the past two seasons.
3) They have appeared on “Hard Knocks” in the past 10 years.
In a way, Hard Knocks is a bit of punishment.
If everything you’re doing is happening behind closed doors, it’s very easy to control the message. Once there’s a camera on, the truth comes out.
And that’s not even factoring in the part that intrigues me the most, the football side.
You see, I can guarantee with 100 percent certainty that Peyton Manning would have gone ballistic if a team he was on did Hard Knocks. Why? Because Manning would have been paranoid to no end that a team could get an advantage from watching the inside look at practice.
Infamously, after Week 1 in 2012, J.J. Watt told Pro Football Talk that he picked up the Miami Dolphins snap count from watching the team on the show.
“Once the game gets going, you pick it up anyways,” Watt said. “So it wasn’t a huge advantage, but any little thing can help.”
It’s that “any little thing” philosophy that would have driven Manning crazy, and it got me wondering if the Broncos—considering the fact that they play the Raiders in Week 1—are tuning in to the show looking for “any little thing.”
As I spoke with a host of players, I learned that many players don’t watch at all, some—like Von Miller—just like to see how other teams are doing things, and some—like Shelby Harris—believe the drama is too overplayed.
I also learned that nobody really believed there was anything tangible you could learn from an Xs and Os perspective, other than Connor McGovern, who doesn’t watch the show, but said “there are guys” who “will give us a little cheat sheet if they do happen to spill any secrets.”
But there was one subject that came up with multiple guys that might fit into the “any little thing” category.
“Honestly, me watching them on Hard Knocks will probably most benefit my trash talk,” said wide receiver Tim Patrick, who plans on catching up when training camp is over. “I can watch film and watch their plays, but if they do something in Hard Knocks, I’m going to use it out on the field and mess with their head a little bit.”
Patrick may especially be looking for some new material after Jon Gruden told him to “shut the f*** up” last year.
“You can learn different little things about guys for sure,” added Bradley Chubb with a smirk. “Sometimes, in college, I would go on guys’ social media to try to figure out who they are and stuff. Hard Knocks allows you to see that because they tell you who they are… They have their girlfriends on there so somebody would probably say something about their girlfriend. You could get some information out of it.”
So, there you have it. It’s not the intimate details of what’s going on between the lines that these guys are concerned with, they simply want to dog Derek Carr for allegedly oiling up his arms before practice.
Maybe Peyton Manning wouldn’t have much to worry about.
