Hard Knocks is a saga for NFL teams every year. The bottom line is that most of them don’t want to do it.
The Chicago Bears are always at the top of the list.
George McCaskey doesn’t even hide it. Any time the media asks him about it, he talks about how little interest he has in having his team featured in the program.
The NFL always hopes that a team will volunteer, but if that doesn’t happen, they can force a team to do it.
A team that is forced to do it has to meet three criteria: they don’t have a first-year head coach, they haven’t made the playoffs the last two seasons, and they haven’t been on Hard Knocks for the last 10 years.
Only three teams meet that criteria this year: the New Orleans Saints, the Denver Broncos, and, yes, the Chicago Bears.
After speaking with someone connected with HBO, the Bears are not only HBO’s most desired team out of the three; they are also the most desirable team out of all 32 NFL teams.
Why wouldn’t they be? They are an up-and-coming team with plenty of new faces, and they have two big-time rookies with big personalities in quarterback Caleb Williams and wide receiver Rome Odunze.
But will the Bears be forced to do it? That’s the major question.
While the NFL would like the Bears to do it, there has also been a precedent set that many of the NFL's “bigger” franchises consistently get a pass. If you look at the series' history, the Dallas Cowboys have been on multiple times, but that’s also a franchise that loves promotion.
When you look at some of the other major franchises, the ones that have been part of the league for 75 to 105 years, almost none of them have done it.
Some of the teams besides Chicago that have never been featured on Hard Knocks include the New England Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Giants, Washington Commanders, Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, and Seattle Seahawks.
When you look at that list, it’s littered with large markets with franchises that have been around going back decades.
The NFL has changed the rules after this season, throwing out the making the playoffs rule and reducing the Hard Knocks waiver from 10 years to 8 years.
The show has reached a critical point. The NFL could force the Saints to do it and give the fans a largely uninteresting series about a middle-of-the-road team without any major signs of life. This would continue to give major franchises a pass on the series which will eventually lead to the end. Or they could force the Bears to do it and hope that the domino of having the charter franchise participate in Hard Knocks will be the domino to start having other major teams involved in the show.
How Roger Goodell handles this season of Hard Knocks is going to set the precedent for the league moving forward. Either he will let the Bears slide and continue to let major franchises slide on the series, or he will tell the Bears that it’s happening this year, which will send a message to the other major players in the league and tell them, through this decision, your time is coming.
A league source also stated, in terms of the in-season series that is shifting to an entire division, that the NFL wouldn’t want to force teams to double up that have done it in recent years.
Since 2020, a team from the AFC West, NFC West, AFC South, NFC North, AFC East, and NFC East have all done the program.
That would make the AFC North and the NFC South two ideal candidates. The Cleveland Browns were featured in 2018 and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were featured in 2017 as the last two teams from those divisions.
The bottom line is that Hard Knocks is an important show in the NFL’s eyes. They have an opportunity to tell the Bears, in an amazing year, that they are doing the program and start having other major franchises participate moving forward.
The NFL would like to make this decision, ideally, before teams break for the summer in early June. The prediction here is that the Bears will be featured on Hard Knocks this summer, and the in-season series will feature the NFC South.
The Link LonkMay 04, 2024 at 12:30AM
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Chicago Bears and Hard Knocks: Here’s the latest information - Windy City Gridiron
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