Some teams like the exposure of being featured on Hard Knocks.
The Bills are not one of them.
They are appearing on the 25th edition of the famed HBO series but are not happy about it and haven’t promoted their appearance on the show at all. General manager Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott have long said they feel the show is a distraction and could lead to bad PR.
It didn’t help that last year Giants general manager Joe Schoen didn’t come across well when he talked about Saquan Barkley testing the market even though owner Wellington Mara wanted to keep him. We all know how all that turned out as Barkley signed with the Eagles and won a Super Bowl ring.
But if the first show was any indication, the Bills have nothing to worry about.
There is a good storyline about this season for the Bills. They are under pressure to finally get to the Super Bowl after failing to make it despite winning the division the last five years. They are favored in the preseason odds in every game. Not that anybody expects them to go undefeated, but it is kind of a Super Bowl-or-bust season. The show mentioned the heartbreak of the Bills repeatedly losing to the Chiefs in the playoffs, and of their four trips to the Super Bowl in the 1990s without winning one.
But the show didn’t dwell on the pressure they face this year or that Josh Allen needs a Super Bowl ring to be part of his legacy, although they did spend a lot of time stressing what Allen means to the Bills.
And they had the usual personal moments like Dion Dawkins taking his kids drifting.
The Bills may wind up thinking it was a positive experience. And always interesting to see what happens behind the scenes.
Of course, they don’t mention that no team has won the Super Bowl in the year they appeared on Hard Knocks.
Maybe the Bills can break that streak.
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