What’s it like reliving the latest stop in your favorite football team’s three-game skid? Well, Hard Knocks: In-Season with the NFC East is there to help.
The second episode of the latest iteration of Hard Knocks dropped on Tuesday evening. Generally, this format focusing on four teams concurrently doesn’t work, but I understand why the NFL does it. It’s too great of a burden to throw upon a single team to have cameras following them like this in the heat of a potential playoff run. Spreading it around lessens that to a degree and focusing it on a division could theoretically even out that effect when it comes to the standings. Still, it’s too jumpy to actually be a fully formed documentary.
Anyway, the second episode was a bit more lively than the snooze fest debut episode last week. As much as people want to have the pitchforks and torches out in Philadelphia given the free fall the Birds currently find themselves in, I found the players to be personable and enjoyable to watch.
The highlight was definitely A.J. Brown helping out at a local Acme and buying groceries for people in the Philadelphia area this holiday season:
That’s the side of professional athletes we don’t see as often.
Additionally, I found Brown and DeVonta Smith hyping up and laughing at Nick Sirianni’s highlights from his days as a receiver at Mount Union to be disarming. If I knew nothing about how this season has transpired for the Eagles so far, I’d have assumed this was a frictionless team with the whole world in front of them!
There was one Sirianni line that he delivered to the team in the lead-up to the Chargers game while at the NovaCare Complex that stuck with me.
“You can’t let the pains we experience cloud our love of the game,” Sirianni said.
I thought that was applicable to the fan base’s feelings about the Birds right now, myself certainly included. We all are suffering, relatively speaking, of course, watching this team at the moment, but we’re doing so because we love the Eagles, because we love football, because we love the jolt that comes from cheering on our favorite teams. I want to get back to that feeling.
Bring on the Raiders, I guess!
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