When The NFL Comes Knocking

I've always had mixed feelings about the annual HBO series Hard Knocks. I watch it and I love it but I've always found something seriously wrong with it. It's intrusive, very intrusive, and I can't imagine any head coach wanting anything to do with being a part of it. Training camp is so important and having a film crew shadowing the coaches, players, and staff makes the process even harder. It helps that the film crew is that unbelievable group out of Mount Laurel Township, NJ. NFL Films. But even NFL Films doing their fantastic work has to get in the way. Even if they aren't physically in the way their presence has to be an added concern for everything that goes on during the all-important, team-building/creating time of training camp. An added concern that a coaching staff really doesn't need. Some of the most compelling moments of every season of Hard Knocks are those in which the players are cut. I've always been uncomfortable with these moments. These incredibly devastating moments are being shown to the world. How would any of us like having our life-long dreams shredded in front of millions of people? It's just not right. Because these devastating moments are so compelling they aren't going anywhere. Despite all of these complaints of mine I love Hard Knocks. It's fun to get to know the process. It's fun to get to know the players, coaches, and team personnel under that year's microscope. It's a fun show but I never want to see the Minnesota Vikings on it. I would love to be "a fly on the wall" of the Vikings training camp. Hard Knocks is the closest that I'll probably ever be to that "fly on the wall" but I don't like the idea of that sort of intrusion. I can't imagine Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer enjoying a film intrusion on his training camp. Even though he was a star of a couple of seasons of the series when he was an assistant coach.

Hard Knocks has become an NFL preseason staple and it's going to stay that way. If no team volunteers for it the league is going to force a team to do it. Nice. The league has developed some criteria for picking a team for the program. Only teams that 1) have a new head coach; 2) have been to the postseason in either of the last two years: or 3) or have served as the Hard Knocks subject within the last 10 years can so no. This year the teams that can't say no are the Saints, Bills, Bears, Jaguars, Raiders, Chargers, and Rams. No Vikings. That's good. It's one of the many good things about making the playoffs.

One of the many nuggets that has dropped out of the happenings at the Scouting Combine this week was the one that the Saints are bracing for the possibility of the league picking them as the team to be the subject of the next season of Hard Knocks. Lucky them.