Oakland Raiders to be featured on HBO’s Hard Knocks

The Oakland Raiders have been long suspected of being the NFL chosen for HBO’s Hard Knocks this season, and it was made official on Tuesday.

In the least surprising news of the NFL offseason, the Oakland Raiders training camp and preseason will be featured on HBO’s Hard Knocks. On August 6th, fans will get to see their favorite team up-close and personal.

The show will feature the Raiders newly acquired talent of Antonio Brown, Trent Brown, Clelin Ferrell, Richie Incognito, as well as hold the relationship between head coach Jon Gruden and QB1 Derek Carr under a microscope. It will make for entertaining television, but will it be good for the team?

Regardless of how you look at it, the answer to that question is “No.” It’s never a good thing when there’s potential distractions of a camera crew and talking heads breaking down everything that’s done. It will be fascinating to see how the team handles it.

The question is not, “Will this be a distraction?” The better question is, “How big of a distraction will this be?” Gruden mentioned the distractions of moving and playing in multiple countries are already on their radar.

Hopefully for Jon Gruden, Derek Carr, and Antonio Brown, HBO’s Hard Knocks does not add a overly large distraction to what is already a potentially distracted team.

Now, that’s the team side of things. For the fan in me, I’m pumped. I think I speak for Raider Nation when I say that we eat up as much content about the Raiders as we possibly can. I am excited to see the rookies in action. I want to see Abram, Josh Jacobs, and Clelin Ferrel take control of that class.

I want to see the second year players step up. I’m excited to see Hurst step up with Arden Key. It’s been an eventful offseason, and it just got even more-so.