The NFL’s proposal for owners to expand the number of teams that can be required to submit to Hard Knocks includes a proposal that would expand the number of teams that will be featured each year on the in-season version of Hard Knocks.
Via Ben Fischer of Sports Business Journal, in-season Hard Knocks will feature all four teams in one division, if the proposal is accepted.
The goal would be to “ease competitive concerns,” given that one team from a division must open its doors to NFL Films during a postseason push, while the other teams don’t.
Frankly, that acknowledgement underscores the fact that, for the other teams in the same conference who are competing with the teams from the Hard Knocks division for playoff placement and/or wild-card berth, there’s a potential edge.
The Cardinals, Colts, and Dolphins have been the teams for the first three years of in-season Hard Knocks. This presumably means that their divisions — the NFC West, AFC South, and AFC East — won’t be the 2024 subject of in-season Hard Knocks.
