The 2020 NFL season will end with Super Bowl LV on Sunday, which means it’s time for the league to prepare for 2021. One of the things fans are looking forward to is the HBO series Hard Knocks as it documents an NFL team’s training camp and preseason. And according to Jeremy Cluff of the Arizona Republic, five teams are eligible to be featured in the series – the Arizona Cardinals, Dallas Cowboys, Denver Broncos, New York Giants and Carolina Panthers.
Teams are eligible if they don’t have a first-year head coach, haven’t made the playoffs in the last two seasons and have not appeared on the years in the last 10 seasons. Last year, the NFL decided to go with the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers as both were playing in a new stadium. The Cardinals have never been on Hard Knocks and neither has the Broncos, Giants and Panthers. The Cowboys have appeared on the show in 2002 and 2008.
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The Cardinals were eligible to be on the show in 2020, and with the team just missing the playoffs, it’s possible they could be the featured team in 2021. We’re always going to listen to everything,” Cardinals president Michael Bidwill told Arizona Sports 98.7 FM last February about possibly being on Hard Knocks. We’ll see what comes up. I think we’ve done a good job of being available and volunteering to do things, like All or Nothing. So we’ll see where we end up.”
All or Nothing is another NFL docuseries that streams on Prime Video. The Cardinals appeared on the show during the 2015 season which was when they reached the NFC Championship game. Bruce Arians, the current head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, was the coach of the Cardinals at the time.
The Panthers are another team that have appeared on All or Nothing. They were featured during the 2018 season and finished the year 7-9. The Cowboys were featured on the show in 2017, a season where they finished 9-7 and missed the playoffs. The Broncos and Giants have not appeared on All or Nothing. Hard Knocks began in 2001 with the Baltimore Ravens. The Cowboys followed them in 2002, and the show took a hiatus before returning in 2007. Actor Liev Schreiber has been the narrator since the start of the series.
