As a fan of a team that plays in the division, I figured that Hard Knocks: In Season with the AFC North would be the talk of my social circles throughout the final few weeks of the NFL’s regular season.
Granted, I’m a fan of the Cleveland Browns, whose season has been over since before Halloween. But if I have friends who are still willing to tailgate in single-digit temperatures for a team with even fewer wins, then surely I’d have a few acquaintances willing to spend an hour each week getting a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the team they already dedicate a disproportionate amount of their time to.
Yet every time I attempted to have a conversation about the series that I was admittedly watching more for professional purposes than personal ones, it quickly became clear that I was one of the few actually keeping up with it. And it wasn’t just the Browns fans in my life either; Bengals, Steelers, and Ravens fans I know all seemed to have either stopped watching the show after its first episode or were avoiding it altogether.
My evidence is admittedly anecdotal, but it also appeared to be the case on social media. Save for Mike Tomlin’s standout debut in the series premiere, Joe Burrow bragging about his Batmobile, and footage of Myles Garrett adorably talking up a Ravens rookie offensive lineman who had asked for his jersey, there weren’t many — or even any — clips that seemed live beyond their initial airing on HBO.
Roger Rosengarten: “I know I’m a nobody… but could I get that jersey after?”
Myles Garrett’s response is so pure 🥹 #HardKnocks pic.twitter.com/8mVCIkMhXx
— NFL (@NFL) January 8, 2025
That’s not to say In-Season Hard Knocks was bad; my Browns bias aside, I found it to be an enjoyable, empty-calorie watch. Simultaneously following four teams might have made for a higher degree of difficulty for HBO, but the approach paid off with the series having access to more storylines and star power than any of Hard Knocks‘ previous iterations.
So why didn’t it translate?
While the original training camp version of Hard Knocks has long grown stale — how many times can we follow an end-of-the-roster rookie’s unlikely quest to make the team? — Last year’s debut of the ‘Offseason’ version seemingly breathed new life into the franchise. Sure, it helped that the New York Giants’ attempt — or lack thereof — at re-signing Saquon Barkley made for a clip for the ages. But I enjoyed seeing the Giants’ front office literally map out its offseason, free agent and draft targets as much as I did Joe Schoen smugly assuring owner John Mara that losing the franchise’s best player to a division rival would work out just fine for Big Blue (spoiler alert: it didn’t).
Ultimately, Hard Knocks: Offseason gave us an inside look at a part of the NFL calendar fans don’t typically get true access too. That was a part of the formula that made the training camp version of the series initially so popular before two decades of the same storylines got old.
But while some of the access afforded to Hard Knocks: In-Season is unique — especially in the team meeting rooms — the reality is that the series relied too heavily on in-game footage. And while it’s fun to re-live games we’ve already seen through the prism of our favorite players being mic’d up, that’s something that fans have already grown accustomed to via Inside the NFL and weekly social media clips.
Even team websites and social media accounts have made a habit of posting their own behind-the-scenes footage throughout each season. Factor in that Hard Knocks: In-Season actively avoided sensitive subjects like Deshaun Watson’s presence with the Browns and Burrow’s house being broken into during a game and the series simply didn’t offer viewers much they understandably didn’t feel like they already had access to.
Can that change? It’s tough to say, especially with the series airing at a time when fans are already inundated with NFL content, let alone the busyness of the holidays.
All things considered, Hard Knocks: In-Season has a place and it’s still an upgrade from the single-team training camp version of the series. It just needs to figure out what makes it unique and lean more heavily into the aspects of the NFL season that fans don’t feel like they’ve already seen.