Hard Knocks In-Season Episode 8: Heroes and Goats

kerouac9

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Pity the poor HBO Films crew. They've been fortunate to be embedded in south Tempe for the year, but they've been unfortunate to have to shuttle back-and-forth to Paradise Valley/Fountain Hills all the time, and they've run out of interesting personalities to focus on, either due to injury or uncooperativeness.

It's wild how Hard Knocks has (been forced to?) tiptoe around the whispers about coaching changes. I would guess that it's a taboo topic inside the building, but that probably should be the most fascinating thing about this. I wish I could find out what drives Kliff to still come to the facility at 3:30 AM when there's nothing of value to be gained.

Heroes
J.J. Watt
- The Cards have been so stingy providing/approving content that a lot of this episode featured highlights from previous seasons of Hard Knocks. J.J. has had a great career, he's a great interview, and he seems like a good teammate to a lot of guys. He deserves a better ending to his story. Weird that Houston couldn't find a way to keep him around.

A.J. Green - What a letdown to a likely Hall of Fame career. Green is a two-time second-team All-Pro selection and seven-time Pro Bowler. He gets a season where he's going to get outperformed by Greg Dortch. Nice feature on him watching his kid play flag football at some local park and a clip of him being clowned because HUDL didn't exist when he was in high school.

David Blough - It's always a good standby to show a professional athlete blow minds with a simple card trick. Blough also gets a revisit from Hard Knocks past, in case someone missed the much-better Detroit Lions training camp. Blough is a churchy goober, but he seems like a good enough guy.

Goats
Michael Bidwill
- Seems like last year Michael and his siblings were spending a lot of effort trying to secure their father's legacy. Bill Bidwill, Sr. was added to the Cardinals Ring of Honor, and putting his name on the stadium of the Little Hoyas of Georgetown Prep (ranked 25th in Maryland in 2022). Imagine having to take time off your job to cover this.

Zaven Collins - Another big goober who has an enormous closet. We got to watch JJ roast him (including some replays from previous weeks), and Bill Davis talked about his measurables and how the team wants him to play more instinctively. That seems to be a theme for our young linebackers (maybe a problem!).

Dean Pees - At the end of a fairly lackluster gameday sequence (if you have to talk about how entertaining the game was, maybe it wasn't that entertaining), the Atlanta Defensive Coordinator walked around and introduced himself to a bunch of Cardinals players, including J.J. Watt. Coach, you've spent 14 years in the NFL and nearing your 45th year as a football coach.
 

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As there ever been a series of Hard Knocks where their starting QB was so invisible?

When he was healthy he was barely featured outside of game footage and even when injured, before or now, I would expect a QB to be around the facility and still shown on the show.

One of the main interests in the season of HK was getting to see the real Kyler behind the scenes and at best I've learned nothing about him and at worse it's reinforced the image that he's a reclusive, kinda arrogant A-hole.
 

TJ

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I fell asleep watching this in the middle of the afternoon. So boring. Looking forward to the grim reaper coming next Monday
 
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kerouac9

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As there ever been a series of Hard Knocks where their starting QB was so invisible?

When he was healthy he was barely featured outside of game footage and even when injured, before or now, I would expect a QB to be around the facility and still shown on the show.

One of the main interests in the season of HK was getting to see the real Kyler behind the scenes and at best I've learned nothing about him and at worse it's reinforced the image that he's a reclusive, kinda arrogant A-hole.
I dunno. Jared Goff was healthy this preseason and the Lions Training Camp hard knocks focused mostly on Blough.

There was a little shot of Kyler in a brace walking across the field.

I don't really mind if players choose not to participate in this. It's up to them; this was an ill-advised stunt by ownership/management. Players can and should use it to their own ends -- that's definitely what Blough, Budda, and J.J. have done.

Kyler had an opportunity to reset his image after a pretty rough few months, and he passed on that. It's not super-generous, because he's making it harder for other people to do their jobs (namely the NFL films crew), but he doesn't have an obligation to do anything.
 

Ouchie-Z-Clown

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Pity the poor HBO Films crew. They've been fortunate to be embedded in south Tempe for the year, but they've been unfortunate to have to shuttle back-and-forth to Paradise Valley/Fountain Hills all the time, and they've run out of interesting personalities to focus on, either due to injury or uncooperativeness.

It's wild how Hard Knocks has (been forced to?) tiptoe around the whispers about coaching changes. I would guess that it's a taboo topic inside the building, but that probably should be the most fascinating thing about this. I wish I could find out what drives Kliff to still come to the facility at 3:30 AM when there's nothing of value to be gained.

Heroes
J.J. Watt
- The Cards have been so stingy providing/approving content that a lot of this episode featured highlights from previous seasons of Hard Knocks. J.J. has had a great career, he's a great interview, and he seems like a good teammate to a lot of guys. He deserves a better ending to his story. Weird that Houston couldn't find a way to keep him around.

A.J. Green - What a letdown to a likely Hall of Fame career. Green is a two-time second-team All-Pro selection and seven-time Pro Bowler. He gets a season where he's going to get outperformed by Greg Dortch. Nice feature on him watching his kid play flag football at some local park and a clip of him being clowned because HUDL didn't exist when he was in high school.

David Blough - It's always a good standby to show a professional athlete blow minds with a simple card trick. Blough also gets a revisit from Hard Knocks past, in case someone missed the much-better Detroit Lions training camp. Blough is a churchy goober, but he seems like a good enough guy.

Goats
Michael Bidwill
- Seems like last year Michael and his siblings were spending a lot of effort trying to secure their father's legacy. Bill Bidwill, Sr. was added to the Cardinals Ring of Honor, and putting his name on the stadium of the Little Hoyas of Georgetown Prep (ranked 25th in Maryland in 2022). Imagine having to take time off your job to cover this.

Zaven Collins - Another big goober who has an enormous closet. We got to watch JJ roast him (including some replays from previous weeks), and Bill Davis talked about his measurables and how the team wants him to play more instinctively. That seems to be a theme for our young linebackers (maybe a problem!).

Dean Pees - At the end of a fairly lackluster gameday sequence (if you have to talk about how entertaining the game was, maybe it wasn't that entertaining), the Atlanta Defensive Coordinator walked around and introduced himself to a bunch of Cardinals players, including J.J. Watt. Coach, you've spent 14 years in the NFL and nearing your 45th year as a football coach.
I thought it was weird that Pees was introducing himself as well.

And man, in the absence of getting a terrific coaching staff, I’m worried that zaven is just going to spiral down into a massive whirlpool of confusion without watt. A big old country cowboy who is constantly inside his head seems like a dude not many teammates are going to befriend/take under their wing. I thought it was notable that they always showed watt in his ear and collins mama thanked jJ for mentoring her son.
 

Ouchie-Z-Clown

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As there ever been a series of Hard Knocks where their starting QB was so invisible?

When he was healthy he was barely featured outside of game footage and even when injured, before or now, I would expect a QB to be around the facility and still shown on the show.

One of the main interests in the season of HK was getting to see the real Kyler behind the scenes and at best I've learned nothing about him and at worse it's reinforced the image that he's a reclusive, kinda arrogant A-hole.
Man is this projecting what you want to see.

Dude isn’t featured much so he must an arrogant a-hole. I know brit hates kyler but this is poor form.
 

Krangodnzr

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Man is this projecting what you want to see.

Dude isn’t featured much so he must an arrogant a-hole. I know brit hates kyler but this is poor form.
Yeah I watched a bit of the Lions training camp and Goff was BARELY featured. I don't think it's really telling at all.
 

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I dunno. Jared Goff was healthy this preseason and the Lions Training Camp hard knocks focused mostly on Blough.

There was a little shot of Kyler in a brace walking across the field.

I don't really mind if players choose not to participate in this. It's up to them; this was an ill-advised stunt by ownership/management. Players can and should use it to their own ends -- that's definitely what Blough, Budda, and J.J. have done.

Kyler had an opportunity to reset his image after a pretty rough few months, and he passed on that. It's not super-generous, because he's making it harder for other people to do their jobs (namely the NFL films crew), but he doesn't have an obligation to do anything.

Yeah but that was Goff's 3rd Hard Knocks and he's been around longer. People know who he is.

This was Kyler's chance to turn around a lot of negative opinion on him, not just from his own fans but league wide, and him not being able to see that and take the opportunity is either stupid or arrogant.
 

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Hero - Whoever puts together the little montages at the end. They always seem to be the best material. Defintely the best JJ/Zaven material of the show.

Goat - DJ. He's the biggest personality on the team. If he wanted to, he could steal an episode. Maybe the injury has him in a bad mood.
 

MaoTosiFanClub

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Yeah but that was Goff's 3rd Hard Knocks and he's been around longer. People know who he is.

This was Kyler's chance to turn around a lot of negative opinion on him, not just from his own fans but league wide, and him not being able to see that and take the opportunity is either stupid or arrogant.
Yes - acting corny and hamming it up for the camera is really going to turn around public opinion.

Dude could be the biggest prick in the entire world for the rest of his career but nobody will care as long as he's throwing touchdown passes.
 
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kerouac9

kerouac9

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Hero - Whoever puts together the little montages at the end. They always seem to be the best material. Defintely the best JJ/Zaven material of the show.

Goat - DJ. He's the biggest personality on the team. If he wanted to, he could steal an episode. Maybe the injury has him in a bad mood.

DJ Humphries? Why would they feature a player who isn't in the game? The way these episodes are structured is you feature a handful of guys and then see how they play during the game at the end of the episode. Humphries has played in one game since Halloween.

It'd be interesting to know what players they were hoping to feature. We saw a bunch of old clips with JJ and Rondale -- I wonder if that was another one of the guys. But DJ wasn't featured in any of the run-up, either (which I was kind of expecting); maybe he came off as super-thirsty.
 
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kerouac9

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Goff was barely featured on the Rams Hard Knock as well, though that Hard Knocks sucked because they split the coverage between the two LA teams.
I didn't watch the first Rams hard knocks with Jeff Fisher, but that season started with Jared Goff taking a ride in the Goodyear Blimp. It's hard to imagine he wasn't in it at least a little.
 

oaken1

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cant believe you guys actually watched that crap.

thats what, 8 hours of your life you are never getting back?
 

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Yeah I watched a bit of the Lions training camp and Goff was BARELY featured. I don't think it's really telling at all.
Yeah Hard Knocks (The preseason version) has always been centered around the rookies and fringe players trying to make the team. HBO does a great job introducing the audience to these players and then at the end of the season we get to see some live out their dreams and some have their dreams crushed. There will be an occasional bit about one or two of the stars but the meat is the players on the bubble.
 

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Yes - acting corny and hamming it up for the camera is really going to turn around public opinion.

Dude could be the biggest prick in the entire world for the rest of his career but nobody will care as long as he's throwing touchdown passes.

He doesn't have to do anything but be himself.
 

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I didn't watch the first Rams hard knocks with Jeff Fisher, but that season started with Jared Goff taking a ride in the Goodyear Blimp. It's hard to imagine he wasn't in it at least a little.

Far as I recall he was in the 1st one a bunch. He was a rookie high draft pick. Hard not to be.
 

Ouchie-Z-Clown

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He doesn't have to do anything but be himself.
You would have crucified him for that if he was ever even the slightest bit anything other than rah rah or effusive with praise or studying. Kyler can’t win with someone who already has their mind made up like you no matter what.
 

Cheesebeef

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I didn't watch the first Rams hard knocks with Jeff Fisher, but that season started with Jared Goff taking a ride in the Goodyear Blimp. It's hard to imagine he wasn't in it at least a little.
Even harder to imagine a Cardinals fan actually watching an entire Rams season of Hard Knocks to speak to Goff’s involvement all season.
 

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Even harder to imagine a Cardinals fan actually watching an entire Rams season of Hard Knocks to speak to Goff’s involvement all season.

I didn't watch it all. But like every season choice bits are shown heavily on social media and Goff was featured pretty heavily.

He was also on Rams "All or Nothing" a bunch.

He's been in the league 7 seasons and been on 4 reality shows. Nuts.

My point was, I'm disapointed Kyler swerved his opportunity to show us who he is. And in doing so probably showed us who he is.
 

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