The New York Jets being featured on HBO’s Hard Knocks has been a topic of conversation across the sports media space as we approach training camp for NFL teams. On 104.3 The Fan in Denver, hosts Brandon Stokley and Zach Bye said the Aaron Rodgers storyline makes the Jets compelling enough to feature, but it would be nice to see HBO featuring teams with more to offer viewers in the future.
Bye said the league doesn’t help itself with various rules that protect other teams from being on the show.
“Your own self-imposed rule that if you’re a playoff team from a year ago that you’re off the table from Hard Knocks that’s just silly,” Bye said on Monday’s show. “You take a step back from it like, wait those are your most compelling teams in the league. Why would you try to funnel this audience that is important to you to the bad teams? That doesn’t quite make sense.”
Stokley said the league has stymied the field of teams available for the show with the laundry list of disqualifiers for the other teams.
“You have a limited pool to choose from. You don’t have to do it if you did it in the last ten years, right?” he asked. “So you’re just limiting the pool to such a degree you don’t have a lot to choose from anymore. You just don’t.”
He added that featuring teams that are more popular across the board would probably drum up better interest. But because so many play postseason football, that doesn’t make those teams able to be considered. He agreed with Zach that putting the bad teams constantly on the pedestal will make for worthwhile programming.
“Give us something with some good storylines to watch,” he added. “It’s not enough anymore to just throw that on TV and expect people to watch it. I’ve got a lot of other things I can do with my time – I promise you.”
