NFLWarner Bros. DiscoveryBy Ben Koo on

If the NFL and NFL Films were looking for relevancy in a crowded traditional media and social media world, they struck gold last summer with Hard Knocks: Offseason.

The new edition of the classic brand showed how the sausage was made in an NFL front office during the offseason. While that doesn’t sound overly compelling at first, it actually made great television.

Specifically, the inside look at how the New York Giants discarded Saquon Barkley, freeing him up to land with the rival Philadelphia Eagles.

Thanks to mounted cameras in Senior VP and GM Joe Schoen’s office, viewers watched Schoen, who had absolutely no interest in keeping Barkley, feign interest over several episodes (hoping Barkley would break up with the Giants) while giddily planning for a post-Barkley future. It made for great television.

When the smoke cleared, Schoen got everything he wanted and the show left viewers with the narrative that the Giants have turned the page on a hopeful, new era. It sold the story that the Giants front office worked hard and smartly to make this happen.

Obviously, this has not been the case.

Depending on your rooting interest and sense of humor, you find the footage from Schoen’s office either depressing or hilarious. The clips and screenshots from them have already reached meme status, especially this one:

Mara’s facepalm, not so subtly telling Schoen he’s not entirely on board with this plan. Schoen’s smug reaction. It will all love forever on NFL social media.

Fast forward five months and Barkley is currently a favorite for MVP, the Eagles are running away with the NFC East, the Giants are in the division basement, their plan to build a good offensive line around Daniel Jones failed miserably, and Jones himself is no longer part of the team, having been cut following his demotion. Even Joe Buck and Troy Aikman couldn’t help in reference just HOW bad the Giants looked on the show.

In Hard Knocks, Schoen came off as confident, likable, and a man with a plan. That was probably why he and the Giants agreed to be the first team on Offseason.

But now? Oh boy… Everyone is thinking the same exact thing.

While Hard Knocks Offseason was great content (even more so now), who in the world would want to do it after watching how this played out?

We reached out to WBD and NFL Media PR to see if there is any update on the status of the show but we’re just too far away from when this show will tape for any substantive update right now. While it hasn’t been canceled and is presumed to air again before next season, there is a very serious question of which franchise would be willing to allow this kind of access to their inner workings when it’s been such a stain on the Giants and their front office.

It’s not just media people saying this. Bears GM, Ryan Poles, who participated in the classic version of Hard Knocks, said, “I think that moving forward they are going to have a hard time finding a team. There is no show unless there’s access. And you gotta go through all the different scenarios. That’s a lot of internal conversations. And I struggle sometimes with conversations about players. There’s a business side of things. We try to be as transparent as possible. But I don’t know if it needs to get out to everyone.”

It’s an obvious question: What is the upside?

Whatever it is, the downside now appears to be pretty damn significant. Everyone who covers the NFL is vulturing the Giants and a lot of the criticism stems from the show. If Barkley quietly left New York for the Eagles and we didn’t see it play out, there wouldn’t be footage constantly triggering our memory of how dumb the Giants were.

Not to say the Giants wouldn’t be eating crow this year, but we wouldn’t picture Schoen’s grinning face when being told by Mara how much it would bother him if Barkley went to the Eagles. Instead, every time Barkley does something good for Philly, it will instinctively trigger a memory of that scene and those decisions in the Giants front office.

Barkley is an Eagle because Schoen and the Giants were a mixture of wrong, arrogant, and stupid. It’s certainly not the first time a front office did something so dumb, but you usually don’t watch the stupidity play out on camera. Is this the kind of thing that other teams and their front office personnel want to sign up for? Presumably not.

NFL Films has a good reputation and perhaps the show can be salvaged if they find the right franchise in the right situation. But even if Hard Knocks: Offseason returns, it seems unlikely the access and framing will be anything like what we got with the Giants.

About Ben Koo

Owner and editor of @AwfulAnnouncing. Recovering Silicon Valley startup guy. Fan of Buckeyes, A's, dogs, naps, tacos. and the old AOL dialup sounds

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