Tuesday evening marked the return of the in-season edition of Hard Knocks from HBO and NFL Films. Airing on the cable channel itself and the HBO Max streaming platform, this year brings a focus on all four NFC East teams. Naturally, given the state of Washington and New York in 2025, the focus is heavily set on the streaking Cowboys and the defending champion Eagles.
If I had to give a one-word review of the debut episode, I’d simply say, “Boring.”
That’s ultimately good news for Eagles fans.
There is no drama bubbling to the surface on camera that the viewers see from the coaching staff, Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown or anyone else involved with the organization. There is no palace intrigue from what the front office thinks or how the coaches dissect the Birds’ current rough stretch. It’s just a series of glorified interviews and lowlights from the Eagles’ back-to-back losses to Dallas and Chicago.
Again, it’s kind of a relief that it all felt somewhat pointless. Hurts and Nick Sirianni say all the right things. There are no juicy subplots. It was 55 minutes of just… stuff.
Less exciting content is going to be shown to viewers during the in-season edition rather than the training camp edition from the jump. What makes the training camp editions entertaining is that we’re all starved for football, so we’ll take any content that we can and some of the fun characters that are competing for roster spots can spice things up. Everyone is pretty entrenched at this juncture of the calendar. The way that the Giants-Saquon Barkley Hard Knocks debacle ensued during the lone offseason iteration of Hard Knocks in 2024 ensured that fans would never see any real nitty-gritty details or heard-turning news on this program ever again as well.
It’s truly for the best for the Eagles as they look to right things heading into their Monday Night Football matchup with the Chargers. They don’t need more adversity than what they’re already facing.
Any Eagles fan terrified of pulling the curtain back on this hellacious turn of the season can breathe a momentary sigh of relief. There’s nothing to be gleaned from here, at least not yet. I will continue watching and writing about the series, but if you’re burned out on dosage of the Birds outside of gameday itself, don’t feel bad about skipping Hard Knocks.
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