From The Big Apple to The Second City, Hard Knocks continues to grow

From the opening titles onwards, it was clear that the city of Chicago would be a character in the show, from the opening titles onwards. As it should be too – Chicago is a wonderful city. It was a shame then that more wasn’t done actually within the city then given the many sides it has to it and the eclectic range of neighbourhoods the city has. What the show very much did lean into though was the history of the Bears franchise with repeated references to George Halas, the 1985 Super Bowl-winning team and the like. Again, this is as it should be given the Bears have a rich and storied history.

One of the ways Hard Knocks has come into its own over the years, and this was very much true this year, is by shining a light on those players who wouldn’t normally get any attention – the undrafted rookies and late-round picks. This year, it was guys like Velus Jones Jr and Ian Wheeler.

The cool thing about Jones Jr being focused on too is that it’s an opportunity for the audience to get into the mind of a guy who is at the sharp end of what is an increasing trend in the NFL in recent years; converting wide receivers into running backs and vice versa, and analyse why that is. Don’t get me wrong, it has always happened, yes, but it seems like the league has finally got wise to the threat of someone who the opposition don’t know what position he’s lining up in – guys like Julian Edelman, or more recently and prominently, Deebo Samuel and, to a lesser extent, the Swiss Army Knife that is Taysom Hill. Teams are now trying to extract even more value from those guys who, in the case of running backs in particular, can have very short careers. Not that someone like Velus Jones Jr is complaining given it is what has caused him to make the Bears’ 53-man roster.

What a terrible shame it is that Theo Benedect and Ian Wheeler both didn’t make the roster because of injuries. Benedect has made the practice squad though, while, from what the show implied, the Bears are going to keep Wheeler in the organisation so he can rehab his injury fully. Again, this is 100% as it should be given that Wheeler tore his ACL, this destroying any chance he had of making another team’s roster this season, while playing for the Bears in pre-season.

Also, and this is probably more of a comment on wider society and its priorities than anything else, but there was too much focus on style over substance for me. In the first episode, for example, yes, Bears head coach Matt Eberflus does look good with a beard, but, ultimately, the Bears fans aren’t going to care about that. They’re going to care about whether Eberflus can make the Bears better. Can he help Caleb Williams develop into the generational quarterback the Bears have been looking to recruit for, well, a generation? Can he get the best out of what is arguably one of, if not, the best receiving corps in the league? These are the questions that matter, and which will determine whether Eberflus continues to be a head coach.

Finally, one thing that this particular series of Training Camp did very well was show the hope that now exists within the Bears organisation again. Drafting Caleb Williams seems to have lifted the mood of the entire franchise, and it will now be very interesting to see if that mood and that increased sense of hope translates into better performances on the field, much in the same way that the Detroit Lions’s Training Camp series was a pre-cursor to the better performances and increased success that franchise has experienced since being featured in 2022.