Every August since I can remember I’ve looked forward to Hard Knocks. Hard Knocks means that in basically 5 weeks football season starts.
Hard Knocks has had some absolutely fantastic moments in its 18 seasons, from De’Andre Hopkins breaking ankles and his famous “I fear god homie” speech to Deangelo Hall, Shannon Sharpe impersonations from Baltimore Ravens rookies and finally Vince Wilfork in his overalls, I expect this year to be no different.
Season 19 brings us to Floram, New Jersey and follows the New York Jets.
The Jets had an off-season makeover at the most important position when they traded for Aaron Rodgers, and if you expected this episode to be about anything other than Aaron leaving Green Bay than you would be drastically wrong.
Episode 1 opens with Broadway Joe and the Jets fight song and then immediately shifts to all of the off-season drama between Aaron and that team that resides 230 miles north of us. It then immediately goes into a really cool speech by Jets head coach Robert Saleh.
All bias aside HBO does a great job of showcasing some of the Jets young talent that they’ve drafted the last few years, whether it’s Sauce Gardner going back to the University of Cincinnati to graduate, or Zach Wilson adjusting to his role as QB2 now that A-Rod is in NYC.
My real beef is Hard Knocks film crew or editors shoving the narrative that “whatever you hear on tv about Aaron is false” and that he’s a good guy, and a good teammate. It feels forced. Just show me what camp is really like.
Favorite moment of Episode 1: A helicopter flying in with Liev Screiber emerging and meeting the team. Liev has been the narrator for every Hard Knocks season with the exception of 2007 when die hard Kansas City Chiefs fan Paul Rudd narrated that season. (He also was Cotton Weary in Scream so I wanted to name drop him)
Hard Knocks airs Tuesdays on HBO and streams in MAX the app on the same night. Svo will drop episode recaps every Wednesday.