Texans DE Says He Learned Dolphins Snap Count Watching Hard Knocks
The NFL Preseason is awful. We know this. It’s a complete waste of time. The only silver lining while we have to sit through a bunch of horrible games every August is that we get to watch Hard Knocks on HBO and remember why we loved football in the first place. It seems too good to be true that we get to go that in depth with a pro football team, and ... Well, it probably won’t last much longer.
From Pro Football Talk (via Yahoo! Sports)
Do not ask for whom the bell tolls. The bell tolls for Hard Knocks.
Texans defensive end J.J. Watt delivered a potential death blow to the show on Tuesday, explaining on NBC Network’s Pro Football Talk that he picked up the Dolphins’ snap count by watching the show.
He was a little sheepish and guarded when explaining it to co-host Erik Kuselias, saying that the same information can be picked up from the preseason game broadcasts. But Watt said that it helped.
DAMNIT, J.J. WATT. WHY DID YOU HAVE TO TELL THE TRUTH THERE?
This shouldn’t be news, obviously: Hard Knocks pretty clearly puts teams at disadvantage. Partly because it’s a distraction for teams during training camp, but more because NFL teams guard information like cold war countries and Hard Knocks puts everything -- practices, calls, players -- on full display on National TV. Only publicity-hungry owners like Woody Johnson and Stephen Ross would be desperate enough to say yes to Hard Knocks. Any sane coach would tell HBO and NFL Films to f*** off.
But ... But ... It’s so cool! Everybody loves Hard Knocks. It’s the best. So even if it makes no sense for any NFL team -- and even if J.J. Watt just gave every NFL coach a tangible example to bring up when owners try to force NFL Films cameras on them -- here’s to hoping that the show continues somehow. Because August football really wouldn’t be the same without it.
Worst case scenario, here’s to hoping the Jaguars will always be available.
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