Why the NFL, HBO wanted Dallas Cowboys for 20th season of ‘Hard Knocks’
We needed this.
Whether we love or hate the Dallas Cowboys, it’s hard to turn away when “America’s Team” is on the national stage. Especially after enduring a pandemic-altered 2020 season. None of that is lost on the NFL or television executives.
The Cowboys will be the featured team in HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” the 20th installment of the series, it was announced Friday.
The five-part series debuts at 9 p.m. Aug. 10 on HBO and HBO Max. It will air each Tuesday with a series finale airing Sept. 7. Each episode is about an hour long.
It’s the third time the Cowboys have been featured on the show and first since 2008. They were also featured in the series in 2002.
“There were a few teams that were in deep discussions, both on the list and off the list,” NFL Films VP Ken Rodgers told CBS Sports. “In the end, it’s like a calculus. It really becomes a three-way partnership between the team, HBO and NFL Films. And the Cowboys felt like the right team this year.”
Rodgers said considering what the league and country endured with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, plus the Cowboys specific setbacks, including the injury of Dak Prescott, celebrating the 20th season of “Hard Knocks” by featuring “America’s Team” seemed fitting.
“What better way to rebound from America’s tough 2020? America had a tough 2020,” he said. “America’s game had a tough 2020, and ‘America’s Team’ had a tough 2020, so it only feels right that we feature the Cowboys, who are representative of all us in trying to make a better 2021.”
NFL Films will have a 30-person crew filming at Cowboys training camp in Oxnard, California, in July. Actor Liev Schreiber returns as the series narrator for his 15th season.
Rodgers told CBS Sports that NFL Films will feature new filming styles and camera lenses, including “super-slow-motion and shots to being the audience closer and slower to the players.”
The Cowboys went 5-11 in 2002 and 9-7 in 2008 after being featured in the series. Dallas was 6-10 in 2020.
This story was originally published July 2, 2021 at 11:53 AM.
