Hard Knocks is a season pass for the soul of the NFL

I’m a Pittsburgh boy. Born and raised a Steelers fan, black and gold runs through my veins. But Hard knocks It does something to you. It makes you care about teams you never thought you would. It’s like when I was a kid playing Tecmo Super Bowl on Nintendo. I’d start a season with the Steelers, of course, but before long I’d become fascinated with the Oilers, the Giants, the Falcons, teams I’d never thought about before.

Let’s start with the Bears. They have a new face to the franchise in Caleb Williams, the star quarterback out of USC. The cameras are there when he gets the call on draft day. You can see the guy’s eyes light up, knowing he’s about to step into the spotlight of one of the most passionate fan bases in the league. And you know what? It worked. The Bears just opened their season with a win over the Titans. I turned on NFL RedZone and found myself cheering for them. So I did. Hard knocks makes you.

It reminds me of the Tecmo days. You’d pick a team and suddenly you knew every player on the roster. Lawrence Taylor wasn’t just a name anymore. He was ROLB #56, with his 92% rating and those monstrous stats: 75 hitting power, 69 top speed, and 56 running power. You felt like you knew these guys personally. Hard knocks He does the same thing but with real, flesh-and-blood players. Except you don’t just see Williams’ arm strength and his accuracy ratings. You watch him interact with his teammates, you see how he handles the pressure of being the No. 1 pick. It’s like you’re in the locker room with him.

Even better, because you’ve seen so much up close and in person, it’s not just the A-list stars. Take the battle of the backup quarterbacks between Austin Reed, Tyson Bagent, and Brett Rypien. Without that coverage, these guys would have been faceless “QB2s” in the Tecmo Super Bowl with mediocre stats. Now you see their struggles, their hopes, their families—Rypien is the nephew of Super Bowl MVP quarterback Mark Rypien, while Bagent is the son of all-time wrestling great Travis Bagent—and you cheer them on from the comfort of your couch. It’s like when you were playing in the Tecmo Super Bowl with the Oilers and suddenly you cared about Cody Carlson, Warren Moon’s backup after Moon got injured.

Take the Giants show. It wasn’t a typical training camp. Hard knocks meticulously walked us through the entire offseason: free agency, the scouting combine, draft preparations — the whole thing. The big news? Saquon Barkley’s free agency. Talk about drama. One minute, Giants fans are in an uproar because he signed with the Eagles — Barkley’s hometown team and their biggest rival. The next minute, Barkley is on X saying the Giants never even made him an offer. But then Hard knocks The Eagles have a bombshell effect. They show general manager Joe Schoen saying he gave Barkley a three-year deal worth $12.5 million per year with $25 million guaranteed. That’s almost identical to what the Eagles gave him. It’s the kind of behind-the-scenes revelation that changes the way you look at the whole picture.

We also saw how the Giants handled the loss of Xavier McKinney, one of the league’s best safeties, to the Packers. We saw Schoen negotiate at the Senior Bowl, trying to get linebacker Brian Burns. There was a moment when Schoen talked to Panthers general manager Dan Morgan, and you can see the art of negotiation in action. This is the kind of inside information that used to be locked away in the war room or speculated on or invented by reporters with inside access.

I still think back to the 2012 season of the show, the one that hooked me, watching East Carolina great David Garrard struggle to find a place on the Dolphins. He was one of my all-time favorite college players, and a Pro Bowl guy, and now he’s philosophizing about being fired, about the end of the line. It sticks with you and makes you think about how fleeting it all is, even for the best of them. Garrard was the equivalent of “QB1” in Tecmo’s Super Bowl lingo a while ago. Now he’d lost his fight for a backup job, and you were right there with him, feeling every moment of uncertainty.

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Back to the Bears, we heard stories like safety Jonathan Owens packing his bags for Paris to watch his gymnast wife Simone Biles compete in the Olympics. It reminded us that these players have lives off the field—dreams and responsibilities that don’t show up in any stat line. All of this changed the way we watch the games. When the Bears opened their preseason against the Texans, we weren’t just watching anonymous rookies trying to make the team. We were rooting for guys like Austin Reed, who we saw sweating through drills, nervously waiting for his chance to impress.

For a lifelong Steelers fan like me, it’s strange to care so much about the Bears, Giants or any other team with a logo on both sides of your helmet. But that’s the magic of this long-running franchise. It makes those other franchises feel a little bit like your team. Hard knocks The story gives us a connection to these athletes that goes beyond stats and highlights. It’s not always pretty: Watch new Canadian tackle Theo Benedet, one of the few players from a college north of the border, strip down to his swimsuit at a team meeting and sing “God Bless the USA.” And like watching Garrard suffer the worst cut a decade ago, it’s not always funny. But it’s real, and it makes for great reality TV and a better experience for NFL fans.

Oliver Bateman is a journalist, historian and co-host of the show What’s left? podcast. Visit his website: www.oliverbateman.com.