ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio reported that the New York Jets organization is bracing to be coerced by the National Football League to participate in the preseason edition of the NFL Films and HBO documentary series Hard Knocks. Star quarterback Aaron Rodgers and dynamic, young talent has propelled “Gang Green” into the mainstream conversation among NFL teams, with some experts predicting the team being a legitimate Super Bowl contender.
The conversation regarding the Jets hesitancy to willingly accept the Hard Knocks assignment though is confusing to some fans and members of the media. While the team is eligible since it does not have a first-year head coach nor has the franchise appeared on the show in the last decade, the Jets have garnered more media attention than in recent memory. Rodgers, along with sophomores Garrett Wilson and Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner will try to snap the team’s 12-year playoff drought. In fact, the team is scheduled to play prime time games for the maximum six times allowed under the league’s media rights agreement.
“There is a lot of stuff happening with the New York Jets, and it’d be great TV and great theater,” Gregg Giannotti said on WFAN’s Boomer & Gio morning show on Tuesday. “But they somehow think that these cameras coming in and documenting this stuff is going to screw up their season.”
While there is some correlation between appearing on Hard Knocks and struggling out of the gate, most people in the football landscape knew the Jets would need to be prepared to embrace heightened levels of attention and scrutiny in the media capital of the world. Appearing in the spotlight has been out of the purview of the franchise for an extended period of time, often being overshadowed by the rival New York Giants; however, the tide has turned in the New York metropolitan area with the arrival of Rodgers.
“They probably, as it sounds, would just prefer to be left out and deal with the other distractions that they’re going to have the way they have to,” said Jerry Recco on the morning program. “This is another layer to it. I get it, but at the end of the day though, they’re going to have to say, ‘Okay, the cameras are going to be in; we’re going to watch and that’ll be that.’”
Ironically enough, the Jets produce an Emmy-nominated behind-the-scenes show of its own titled One Jets Drive, the same address as the practice facility in Florham Park, N.J. Since the team is already accustomed to all-access cameras recording moments throughout the day, it is somewhat confusing as to why the team would not be able to adapt to a national crew doing similarly. Even so, the Jets are just one of four teams eligible to appear on Hard Knocks, and the storylines and narratives surrounding the other three are not nearly as compelling.
“If you’re the NFL and you’ve got to make this decision, and we talked about this – there is no other choice,” Recco said. “….It has to be the Jets. Whether they like it or not, it’s going to be them.”
If the Jets are indeed chosen to appear on Hard Knocks, Giannotti knows to expect the show to take a formulaic approach into its production, something from which it has ostensibly refrained deviating. Nonetheless, the program would engross viewers and expatiate a narrative about the team, promulgating the organization and its product around the country ahead of staunch national attention.
“Just the nature of Aaron Rodgers being on the show is going to spice it up,” Giannotti surmised. “At this point, he’s had so many cameras in his face for the last number of years; he should just welcome this. Just welcome it; it doesn’t matter. Just got out about your day; there’s nothing nefarious going on behind the scenes.”
