The NFL announced that the offseason version of the show “Hard Knocks” will return and feature an entire division.
Per the release, “The new installment will chronicle an entire NFL division during one of the most consequential periods of the football calendar as teams look to build and strengthen their rosters through the NFL Scouting Combine, free agency and NFL Draft. The series begins filming at the end of the 2026 NFL season and will debut in 2027.”
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Typically, the show follows a team through training camp, highlighting how it approaches the upcoming season. The NFL and HBO have tinkered with the format, beginning in 2021, to offer an in-season version of the show that shows how a team is approaching the latter stretch of the regular season.
While the training camp-centric version of the show has aired annually since 2007, except for 2011, there has been only one attempt at an offseason version so far.
It came in 2024 and featured the New York Giants. While it did a nice job of pulling back the curtain on how teams approach the draft, it also captured moments of how front offices attack free agency.
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Hindsight is 20/20, and the Giants’ iteration of the offseason television show will be remembered likely only for how the franchise approached the handling of free agent running back Saquon Barkley.
New York opted not to use the franchise tag on him and didn’t want to overpay him. General manager Joe Schoen talked to the RB about being the face of the team in a few years or leaving for another team for more money. Even co-owner John Mara said that he would “have a tough time sleeping if Saquon goes to Philadelphia.”
Eight days after the interactions, free agency started, and Barkley left for an inter-division rival, the Philadelphia Eagles.
The footage went viral on social media, and even the team leadership later admitted that exposing those negotiations may have created an unwanted distraction.
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“Hard Knocks” started implementing an in-season format in 2017. After three iterations following the Indianapolis Colts, Arizona Cardinals, and Miami Dolphins, HBO expanded the in-season version to follow an entire division. The show followed the AFC North in 2024 and the NFC East in 2025.
There has been no indication of when the NFL will announce which division will be featured in the show, and since it won’t air until next offseason, it could be some time before it is revealed.
