Wednesday night marks the premiere of the first-ever Hard Knocks: In Season, with this season focused on the Indianapolis Colts. The first episode of the show debuts at 10 p.m. Eastern on HBO, and will also be available on HBO Max. Here’s a preview clip HBO released Wednesday, focused on Colts’ veteran linebacker and team captain Darius Leonard, and contrasting clips of him making plays on the field with him taking care of his daughter:
“Whenever I come home, it’s, you know, Dad. The only thing about being a girl dad, you don’t really know how to do hair. So you’ve just got to make it up as you go. The only thing I know is the ponytail. [To his daughter:] You like how Daddy did your hair? Huh?”
There’s a nice blend here of footage of Leonard on the field and in team meetings, and footage of him at home. And that’s something that’s worked well for Hard Knocks in the past, with many of its memorable moments coming away from the field. Some of those in the past few years alone range from Ezekiel Elliott’s present-wrapping challenges to the off-field drama with Antonio Brown and his helmet/feet to Johnathan Abram riding horses and debating the pronunciation of salmon to Moose, the Browns’ office dog. This is the first-ever Hard Knocks: In Season, (there have been other in-season shows, including Amazon’s All or Nothing in the NFL alone, but it’s new for Hard Knocks), so it will be interesting to see how they strike that balance throughout this show, and what other notable off-field highlights they’re able to find.
[HBO on YouTube]
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.