I’ve loved HBO’s “Hard Knocks” for a long time. Ever since I started watching the NFL training camp reality series in 2007, when the Kansas City Chiefs were profiled in the show’s third season, it has been appointment TV viewing every August.
No matter how tired I’ve been after covering Lions training camp, even after I sweated through two shirts during two-a-day practices, I’d come home, shower, eat and wait for the magic to happen at 10 p.m. on Tuesday.
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Even though I go into NFL locker rooms and attend news conferences, my curiosity is the same as yours when it comes to the behind-the-scenes stuff that happens in meeting rooms, on the field, in the weight room and in the hotel rooms. Reporters aren’t privy to most of that, and even when we do hear about an incident, we certainly don’t get to watch video footage.
That’s why “Hard Knocks” has been so fascinating. Yes, it’s always been a sort of commercial for the team and the NFL. But at its best, it was not only entertaining but also informative while pulling back the curtain on teams that fiercely protect their privacy.
One of the staples has been watching the cringe-worthy process of players being told they’re getting cut, like the way Danny Amendola got axed by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones in 2008. There have been fun highs, like Jared Goff not knowing where the sun rises during his rookie year with the Rams in 2016, and Rex Ryan growing agitated in a 2010 Jets team meeting and closing it with, “Let’s go eat a (expletive) snack!”
There have been all kinds of camp fights and feuds, but none more interesting than the acrimonious jawing during practice between Browns coordinators Todd Haley and Gregg Williams in 2018. The Browns provided a treasure trove of great footage that year, with Baker Mayfield lampooning general manager John Dorsey and Jarvis Landry rebuking receivers in a position meeting, then getting lampooned himself.
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The show’s seminal moment came with the Dolphins in 2012, when coach Joe Philbin cut Chad Johnson after he was charged with domestic violence. The meeting was broadcast two days after it happened and it changed the show forever. We’ve never gotten another “Hard Knocks” moment as raw and real as that one.
That’s why I was so disappointed in the show’s debut episode last week featuring the Lions. It felt less like a peek inside and more like scripted infomercial fluff that gave us little insight about the team.
It was largely entertaining. The highlight that will forever be etched in our memory will Aidan Hutchinson singing Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” But that easily could have been produced by the Lions’ own excellent internal video team, which actually did a better job last year filming David Blough’s emotion-packed viewing of his wife competing in the 400-meter hurdles at the Tokyo Olympics.
After one episode, the only thing the “Hard Knocks” production army has on the Lions’ video team is a much larger crew, those super slow-motion shots of players in action with accompanying dramatic music and narrator Liev Schreiber channeling John Facenda.
There was really only one sequence of any consequence that showed us something about the personality of this team. It was of running back coach Duce Staley and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn playfully, and maybe not so playfully, talking smack to each other during practice. It was an honest look at the intensity of two former players who have become coaches but can’t let go of their competitiveness.
My main gripe with the show was the decision to spend so much time on coach Dan Campbell taking part in up-downs with players. I hate doing math, but I went the extra mile for y’all and counted up all the time. The show’s run time, when you deduct the 40-second intro, is 44 minutes, 37 seconds. Exactly 3 minutes were spent showing Campbell doing 40 up-downs and then talking about it. That means nearly 7% of the show was devoted to showing a coach jumping up and down.
That’s just lazy filler. The first episode wanted to establish the idea of Campbell being a former player who is now a gritty, colorful player’s coach. But there had to be a more efficient way to show that sequence.
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What the show did capture well about Campbell was his personality. In his convoluted opening speech to the team, he defined his idea of grit using metaphors that involved “one ass cheek and three toes,” drowning an opponent in the ocean and getting hit by a freight train while listening to Metallica.
The best part of this speech — even Campbell asked players to bear with him — was the confused look on players’ faces. The speech captured Campbell’s exuberance and enthusiasm for competition. Even if the speech wasn’t perfectly clear, Campbell got his point across of having a ruthless drive to improve. But, again, the Lions’ own video team could have pointed a camera at Campbell and gotten the same footage.
The producers of “Hard Knocks” need to ask themselves what the goal of the show is for the final four episodes? Is it just random, somewhat entertaining peaks inside a team? Or are they using their access to provide the audience with meaningful narratives about how coaches and players come together to form a team? I hope it’s the latter, because if it isn’t I might just shower, eat and watch something else.
Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.