Seahawks GM John Schneider explains why he came around on ‘Hard Knocks’

The Seattle Seahawks have never been on HBO’s Hard Knocks, and one might have assumed the last thing they’d want to do after winning a Super Bowl would be to let cameras inside their title defense preparations.

However, the Seahawks will indeed be the focus of the 2026 installment of the long-running docuseries, a year after the NFL “liberalized” rules about who can appear on the show.

Former head coach Pete Carroll was infamously against the idea of letting cameras into his locker room for the HBO show, even as general manager John Schneider kicked the tires on the idea.

Now, Schneider is all-in on the experience.

“It’s gonna be great… We’re gonna work with the National Football League and the teams that have been through it before to help us just make it a positive for the organization and have it not be as much of a distraction,” Schneider told Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob. “I talked to (Bears GM) Ryan Poles about it down there and a couple other people just about what it looks like, and we’ll have plenty of advice by the time we get there. But I think it’s going to be – it’s a great deal. When the commissioner called me about it, it made sense.

“Sam Darnold, (Devon Witherspoon), (Jaxon Smith-Njigba), (Leonard Williams), (Byron Murphy II), we got some cool characters on this team that are great stories.”

Schneider admitted he had his own reservations about letting his team’s prep for the upcoming season be documented, and he still thinks the team will be somewhat selective about what it shows.

“I just always worried about telling our story, but I get it from a PR standpoint, a marketing standpoint,” he said. “We’re just very protective of, like, how we do things, what our culture looks like… We’re gonna make it as positive as we possibly can without sharing as much information as we possibly can.”

Schneider admitted he’s excited for audiences to get a look at the Pacific Northwest and the team’s facilities at a time when there’s so much attention on the Super Bowl-winning franchise.

“We’re so sheltered up here. It will allow people to see you know how beautiful that the city is and where we are (at) the (Virginia Mason Athletic Center),” he said referring to the team’s practice facility in Renton. “And I’m just excited for people… to get to know people like Patrick (Ward) and (Erik Kennedy) and Nolan (Teasley) and Trent (Kirchner)… for people to understand all the people that have supported this organization for a long, long time.”

The Seahawks are currently up for sale, so it’s entirely possible a Hard Knocks appearance isn’t a bad idea from that standpoint as well. The more the franchise is in the public eye, the more valuable it is. And given the success the team is coming off of and is expected to continue to have, there’s no time like the present. We just hope that, unlike other recent teams, they give HBO and NFL Films something to work with.