JUST GO AHEAD AND PICK THE DALLAS COWBOYS, HARD KNOCKS

BY ADAM GREENE

It doesn’t mark the official beginning of the NFL season, but it certainly feels that way. Ideally, HBO’s Hard Knocks, produced by NFL Films, gives fans a look inside NFL training camps as the star players and coaches put in the work to begin the season. In practice until last year, it’s usually the story of a handful of players on the edge of the roster that will be cut before camp’s end. If they have a cute kid, expect to see a lot of them. Frankly, it was pretty damn annoying.

Hard Knocks is the honor that no good team wants. In a non-pandemic season, to get the nod your team must not have a new head coach, can’t have made the playoffs in the last two seasons or been on Hard Knocks in the past 10 seasons. That last one came about specifically because two teams had shown up on Hard Knocks twice over its first few incarnations, the Cincinnati Bengals and the team I think they should go ahead and feature again this year, the Dallas Cowboys.

In 2020, of course, all the rules were tossed out the window as the COVID-19 pandemic locked NFL Films out of most training camps. So in an effort to lean into the new post apocalyptic lawless wasteland, the NFL allowed Hard Knocks broke its own regulations and feature both Los Angeles teams who had made the playoffs two years before. It was a one-time thing, but it altered the complexion of the show.

Because families, especially for rookies, were banned there were no cloying toddlers river-dancing around on the field, hugging their dads who, at best, were heading to a practice squad. This time, NFL Films had to actually focus on the real players, the stars and coaches and, in doing so, really showed the difference between a competent playoff-level staff like the Los Angeles Rams and the dumbfounded collection of drooling goobers heading the Los Angeles Chargers.

I have no great hope that NFL Films will lean into what really worked in 2020, showcasing players we actually care about. But I do hope they take this opportunity to focus on the best available team and the inept, moronic and bumbling coaching staff at its helm. So, yeah, pick the Cowboys.

Officially, there are five franchies up for Hard Knocks this season; the Cowboys, the New York Giants, the Denver Broncos, the Arizona Cardinals and the Carolina Panthers.

In spite of the fact that the Cowboys were last on Hard Knocks in 2008, well beyond the 10-year limit, there still is an obvious push to avoid them for a new team. The Cardinals look like a natural choice based on how Hard Knocks has messed up these opportunities in the past. Back in 2017 they could have featured the New Orleans Saints with Sean Payton, Drew Brees, Michael Thomas, Alvin Kamara and the whole crew and eschewed them for the Jameis Winston – Dirk Koetter Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

In 2014 they could have featured the Pittsburgh Steelers of all teams after back to back 8-8 finishes and instead went with the Atlanta Falcons. Hard Knocks can not be trusted to make the right call.

There are reasons to be excited when they finally blow it and settle in on the Cards. They look like a potential playoff team with exciting young stars like Kyler Murray to go with NFL superstars J.J. Watt and DeAndre Hopkins. If NFL Films would actually point their cameras at those guys instead of some Prairieview A&M UDFA and his snotnosed progeny, I wouldn’t have much of a complaint.

But the Cowboys. Oh, this garbage fire disaster of a Cowboys coaching staff must be chronicled. We must see Mike McCarthy’s absolute destruction of this team and its playoff hopes, when he’s riding a Super Bowl roster, happen in real time. For the sake of Dak Prescott and any Dallas player you root for, we must witness this chaotic nightmare unfold on film.

Because, as I said earlier, thanks to Covid, Hard Knocks accidentally showed us how good, professionally run teams operate (the Rams). And they also showed us how bad teams completely ruined their chances before a regular season ball was snapped (the Chargers). We watched the split with our own eyes and it was obvious and startling.

Fun fact about Hard Knocks, every single head coach featured on the show has been fired with the exception of Sean McVay and Jon Gruden (as of today). Since the Falcons in 2014, five of the head coaches featured were fired that same season. Jeff Fisher and Hue Jackson never even made it to Christmas. Anthony Lynn was the latest horrible head coach to get the ax after having all his shortcomings shown to America through the award winning NFL Films’ lenses and, make no mistake, he absolutely deserved it.

The only guy other than Gruden and McVay to make it past his season in that time frame was Bill O’Brien, who somehow remained in command of the Texans until last year.

For this reason alone, we must all openly campaign for the Cowboys to be featured on Hard Knocks. How pleasurable will it be to see the Mike McCarthy and Jerry Jones brain trust derail their team’s postseason hopes in real time in August? Are you going to tell me you wouldn’t love to see the actual professional members of the Cowboys roster openly revolt against McCarthy’s stooge-like game preparation, play design and calling? Because it was happening last year and there was not an NFL Films camera in site.

Jerry Jones fired Jason Garrett and hired the one coach he interviewed that was worse than just keeping Garrett. I want to watch it all go down in flames on high definition premium cable.

Don’t you?

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