There was a time when Giants owner and CEO John Mara jokingly said (we think) that he would be dead before the Giants would ever agree to let HBO feature his team on the popular and polarizing series “Hard Knocks.”
Giants head coach Brian Daboll, given his aversion to transparency when it comes to his team’s internal workings, probably welcomed the idea of ”Hard Knocks” and the HBO cameras the same way Bill Belichick would welcome the paparazzi aboard his boat, “VIII Rings,” to follow him and fellow 23-year-old cheerleader Jordon Hudson for a day.
You have the idea.
And yet… we are here.
The first part of the five-part series “Hard Knocks: Offseason with the New York Giants” will air on Tuesday evening at 9 p.m.
Want a distraction?
Daboll does everything he can to avoid distractions, just as others try to avoid COVID-19. HBO’s presence in these “Hard Knocks” episodes, while entertaining, can also be intrusive. Daboll would rather have a bad case of poison ivy for a month than allow distractions to invade the sacred sanctuary of his meeting rooms and dressing rooms.
Perhaps the Giants can learn something from the Jets, who have experienced the pitfalls of hitting hard twice before. The Jets’ last season was last year, and it came with months of controversy and angst after Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles tendon and the Jets’ season fell apart.
The following words from star cornerback Sauce Gardner echoed when it was all over:
“Some of the stuff in the offseason with Aaron, on ‘Hard Knocks,’ I feel like we lost track,” Gardner said at the end of the 2023 season. “When there are a lot of cameras going on and a lot is happening, you can lose track of what’s important.”
The Jets’ first HBO appearance in the Hard Knocks category came in 2010, with Rex Ryan as head coach, Darrelle Revis leaving, and Tim Tebow being forced into the team. This disastrous existence was a treat for the HBO cameras.
Who can forget when cornerback Antonio Cromartie, notorious for having eight children with numerous different women, was asked by an HBO producer to list all of his children and it took him about 40 seconds to list them all?
Or Ryan yelling to his team after a bad practice at Hofstra University, “Let’s go get a damn snack.” Or the controversial contract negotiations between Revis and GM Mike Tannenbaum?
“The 2010 Jets forever changed the profile and success of ‘Hard Knocks,'” NFL Films executive producer Patrick Kelleher said last year.
Don’t expect the Giants’ appearance on the show to offer such juicy soap opera drama. In some ways, this is a soft landing for “Hard Knocks” because the five episodes were filmed during the offseason, so there was no nonsense related to locker room drama or game results.
Still, the Giants have had their fair share of offseason drama, starting with Daboll firing defensive coordinator Wink Martindale and the Giants aggressively pursuing the best college quarterbacks that left injury-prone incumbent Daniel Jones wondering what his future might hold.
Of course, the flabby Jones isn’t as inclined to do headline-grabbing stuff in front of the HBO cameras as Rodgers did with the Jets.
And then there’s the matter of Saquon Barkley. Barkley is demanding a long-term deal for safety, and the Giants aren’t willing to commit to that commitment. Barkley, one of the most popular Giants in the team’s recent revival, has signed with the arch-rival Eagles. HBO viewers will surely be curious to see if anything interesting comes out of this behind-the-scenes divorce.
It’s worth noting that the Giants had the final editorial say on this project, so don’t expect many explosive moments. What you’ll almost certainly get is a glimpse into some conversations (albeit not revelatory) between Daboll and general manager Joe Schoen surrounding the draft and offseason transfers.
It remains to be seen whether the show will also address the split between Daboll and Martindale, or the decisions regarding the free agents, Barkley and popular safety Xavier McKinney, or how thoroughly they researched the best quarterbacks before the draft.
What you’ll certainly see is some behind-the-scenes insight into the team’s trade of defensive star Brian Burns and the signing of receiver Malik Nabers.
Rest assured, the Giants will not allow the entertaining disaster that resulted from the Jets’ two “Hard Knocks” runs to become public knowledge. Because as Sauce Gardner so aptly put it at the end of the Jets’ season when assessing the “Hard Knocks” effect, “At the end of the day, we still have to win.”
The same goes for the Giants, who – unlike the Jets, who may have done so unintentionally – cannot allow their players to “lose sight of what is important.”
