HBO has announced that the Dallas Cowboys will be featured on the popular reality series “Hard Knocks.” The television program follows a selected team through training camp and provides viewers with an inside look at the tryout process. The Cowboys will appear on the show from their training facility in Oxnard, California.
Immediately after the announcement was made, sportswriters began debating the hottest storylines. From Dak Prescott’s return following a season-ending ankle injury in Week 5 last year to a bevy of bright new defensive players, fans of America’s Team are sure to get a great show. The five-episode series premieres on August 7th.
This will be the third time that the Cowboys have appeared on the show. The last appearance was in 2008. Dallas also appeared on the show in 2002. They will be the only team to have appeared three times. Only two teams, the Baltimore Ravens and the Cincinnati Bengals, have appeared more than once.
For the Cowboys, the show will be an opportunity to excite fans who suffered through one of the most disappointing seasons in recent memory last year. The Cowboys’ 6-10 record was good enough for third in the NFC South, although they were a playoff-favorite early in the season. No team in the division won more than seven games last year.
HBO selected the Cowboys over Arizona, Carolina, Denver, and New York. In order to be considered to appear on the show, the team must meet certain requirements. Teams may not have a first-year coach, may not have appeared in 10 seasons, and cannot have made the playoffs the previous season.
While fans would certainly have loved seeing the team make the playoffs in 2020, the Cowboys appearing on the show is a nice consolation prize for fans who cannot travel to Southern California to watch the team in the first practices since voluntary OTAs finished in June.
The show will follow the team as it trims the roster from 90 to 53 players while the team gets ready for regular-season action. The Cowboys will face off against the Pittsburgh Steelers for the Hall of Fame game on Thursday, August 5th, as a special edition of Sunday Night Football.
The Cowboys will travel to Tampa Bay to try and hand Tom Brady and the Super Bowl-winning Buccaneers their first loss since Week 12 of the 2020 season. The Bucs have won eight straight games, including playoffs and the Super Bowl.
The show will be the first opportunity for fans to see how well the team handles addressing the most glaring issue of the 2020 season — their 28th-ranked defense. The Cowboys used nine of their eleven draft picks to select defensive players.
With lots of new faces and the return of fan favorites, HBO’s “Hard Knocks” promises to be an exciting first look at the 2021 NFL season. Episodes air weekly on Tuesdays and will follow the team through the preseason. The last episode will air just days before the Hall of Fame Game.