The Los Angeles Rams have been a fun team to follow the past several years as they’ve experienced winning at the highest levels.
With Sean McVay on board, the Rams were selected to participate in HBO’s popular show ‘Hard Knocks’ which gives fans a most initiate behind-the-scenes look at the team. It was an even more interesting season considering that the program took place at the height of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
With the 2023 season coming up, a new season of ‘Hard Knocks’ will be premiering soon and McVay explained why teams around the league might prefer not to be featured, via Variety:
“I think the first thing is is when you play in a league that’s so competitive, 32 teams in the league, information is at a premium and so you just wanna be mindful of not having anything that gives somebody else a competitive advantage. You’re always looking for your edges and your margins and just the seamless thing of being able to pick up somebody on their cadence and some of the verbiage and vernacular that can maybe give the opposing team an advantage, so there’s some of those things.
“And then I’ll tell ya, we did ‘Hard Knocks’ during COVID and there was a lot of different issues that were going on just relative to what we were dealing with in society. And I think the thing I always had the most difficult time with was when you have a camera on is it as authentic as it can be when you know somebody is listening as opposed to being able to have that real, authentic, true interpersonal interaction. And so it does take away some of that stuff.
“Now, when you get into a game like at first I’ll notice if I’m mic’d up and maybe my language is a little bit better but then you get into the flow of it and then you’re like, ‘Oh man, I really am a basket case.’ So you get going on stuff, but I think those are the reasons why people would say if you had a choice you would not want to do it. And that’s where some of the things like ‘Behind the Grind’ that our team produces themselves, those are easier because you kind of have editing privileges. And you still have that, the NFL does a good job of working with you on that, but those would be some of the reasons why I think all things being equal you’d say let’s just keep it about our team and that’s why teams wouldn’t want to do it.”
With a camera crew following around coaches and players all the time, it would make sense why teams would be wary about any information being made public. Fortunately, McVay and the Rams are off the hook this year meaning they’ll be able to get themselves ready accordingly.
The same cannot be said for Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets though as they were selected as this year’s team, which should make for a very interesting training camp.
