For the first time in franchise history, the Chicago Bears have been chosen as the featured team for the training camp version of ‘Hard Knocks.’ The announcement was made yesterday by team, NFL Films and HBO. The team will appear in five episodes of the 18-time Sports Emmy award winning show, starting on August 6 and airing each Tuesday through September 3. 670 The Score hosts Danny Parkins and Matt Spiegel reacted to the news on Parkins & Spiegel and couldn’t hold back their excitement.
“Let’s go,” said Parkins. “Against the McCaskey family’s wishes, the NFL and NFL Films have selected the Chicago Bears to be the featured team on Hard Knocks…the Giants are the offseason team, the traditional Hard Knocks training camp team will be your Chicago Bears.”
Spiegel added, “The Bears, Saints and Broncos were the three teams that could be forced to do it. The parameters were not being on Hard Knocks for the last ten years, not having a first-year head coach and no playoffs in the last two years. If it’s just the NFL strong arming, great. If it is the McCaskey’s loosening up a little bit on their notorious tightness, that’s great, too. Whatever, either way this is awesome.”
Parkins explained why the team’s stance may have changed a bit on the show. “Listen, Hard Knocks is sanitized, because there’s still NFL approval and teams get to see it and there aren’t that often that many things that come out of it that are all that damaging,” he said. “…Teams are creating more of this content themselves, but I am here for all of it. And it will boost the profile, it will boost expectations and it will be damn fun content even if it is sanitized from what it was 15 years ago.”
“You don’t get made to look bad anymore, that’s not what happens anymore,” Spiegel said.
“Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Chicago Bears will provide our passionate fans across the world the ability to experience this unique and critical time in the history of our franchise,” team President & CEO Kevin Warren said in the release to announce the Bears as the featured team.
