We’re getting close to the debut of HBO/NFL Films’ Hard Knocks: In Season for 2024 on December 3. This year’s installment will premiere that Tuesday and air every Tuesday there after until the division’s last team is eliminated. It will air linearly on HBO and stream on Max, and will cover a whole division for the first time, going across the AFC North with the Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, and Pittsburgh Steelers.
The team selection there has worked out very well for Hard Knocks. The Steelers and Ravens are battling at the top of the division and are 8-2 and 7-4 respectively after Pittsburgh’s win in their clash Sunday, and they both have fascinating QB situations, with Baltimore featuring reigning NFL MVP Lamar Jackson and Pittsburgh finding success despite not-overwhelming performances from Russell Wilson (but with Justin Fields waiting in the wings). Meanwhile, Bengals’ QB Joe Burrow leads the league with 3,028 passing yards so far and had a thrilling game in their 35-34 loss to the Ravens two weeks back. Cincinnati’s 4-7 on the year, but isn’t out of the playoff hunt yet.
And while the Browns look to be out of the playoff race at 2-8, they have their own notable drama. That includes discussion of attempts to replace injured, expensive, and controversial QB Deshaun Watson, out for this season with a ruptured Achilles tendon, but with plenty of questions about his future, plus the challenges elsewhere for that franchise in a disappointing season after they went 11-6 and made the playoffs for the first time since 2020 last year. So there are lots of storylines to follow in this division, as shown in the trailer HBO put out Tuesday:
And here’s a HBO poster for this:
When the AFC North was announced as the subject for this in-season Hard Knocks back in June, NFL Films VP and head of content Keith Cossrow talked up the division’s 2023 success as a rationale for its selection. There, he said “Last season the AFC North became the first division ever to have all four teams finish with a winning record, making it the perfect place to launch this new approach to ‘Hard Knocks.‘ And while the four teams with winning records won’t be repeated this season, the division does have at least two teams amongst the class of the AFC, and has interesting stories around the other two.
A big challenge with in-season NFL docuseries thus far (including the Indianapolis Colts, Arizona Cardinals, and Miami Dolphins over the past three seasons for Hard Knocks: In Season and the five All or Nothing series Amazon did covering NFL teams during the 2015-19 seasons) is that many of the teams covered have not been particularly good or noteworthy. For All or Nothing, the debut season saw the Cardinals go 13-3 and make it to the NFC Championship Game, but that was followed by a 4-12 Los Angeles Rams season, a 9-7 Dallas Cowboys season, a 7-9 Carolina Panthers season, and a 9-7 Philadelphia Eagles season (with a Wild Card round loss).
For Hard Knocks, the 2021 Colts, 2022 Cardinals, and 2023 Dolphins went 9-8, 4-13, and 11-6 (with a Wild Card round loss) respectively. So, apart from that first All or Nothing, there hasn’t been regular-season dominance or a protracted playoff run from any of the involved teams.
With this new divisional focus, that may be much more of a possibility. At the moment, both the Steelers and Ravens are amongst the top AFC teams, and the Bengals could make a playoff run with the right results down the stretch (and they face the Steelers Sunday).
And the wider divisional focus also enhances the possibilities for Hard Knocks, as they can focus more or less on any particular team in any given week according to what makes sense editorially. We’ll see how the eventual product turns out here, but if it’s strong, it may suggest that the divisional model could be the way to go for the in-season version of Hard Knocks going forward.
[Max on YouTube]
