{"id":87011,"date":"2025-08-16T10:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T10:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/87011\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T10:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T10:30:10","slug":"giants-hard-knocks-was-so-successful-it-ruined-offseason-version","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/87011\/","title":{"rendered":"Giants&#8217; &#8216;Hard Knocks&#8217; was so successful it ruined offseason version"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Giants broke \u201cHard Knocks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 2024 offseason version of the longstanding HBO show followed Big Blue and offered up loads of viral moments that NFL Films now understands were too successful.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen that one or two clips about [former Giants running back] Saquon [Barkley] got removed and isolated and blew up on social media, and as we\u2019ve seen, have taken on a life of their own, that certainly gives people pause in the NFL and in every other walk of life about doing these sorts of shows,\u201d Keith Cossrow, the head of content, told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/08\/14\/nfl-films-exec-viral-social-media-risk-killed-offseason-hard-knocks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Sports Business Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s funny, we all want to go viral, right? Not for the wrong reasons, but it\u2019s a measure of success in the world we live in today. But it can also go in directions that nobody can predict.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Among the more successful portions of the show \u2014 for NFL Films, at least \u2014 was Giants GM Joe Schoen\u2019s infamous <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2024\/07\/10\/sports\/hard-knocks-joe-schoen-wanted-saquon-barkley-to-give-giants-last-call\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">phone call with Barkley<\/a> as they attempted to keep him in New York, owner John Mara saying he\u2019d \u201chave a tough time sleeping\u201d if Barkley ended up with the Eagles (he famously did, and won a Super Bowl in his first season in Philadelphia) and the franchise\u2019s unsuccessful attempt to trade up for a quarterback in the 2024 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.50146628;display:block\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"32762867\" width=\"886\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Joe-Schoen.jpg\" alt=\"Giants general manager Joe Schoen talks on the photo during Episode 2 of &quot;Hard Knocks.&quot; \" class=\"wp-image-32762867\"  \/>Giants GM Joe Schoen\u2019s infamous phone call with Saquon Barkley proved to be too successful. MAX<\/p>\n<p>The virality left the production company hungry for a follow-up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the best, and most interesting, and most surprising shows we\u2019ve ever made,\u201d Crossrow said.<\/p>\n<p>Therein lies the problem, however: the widespread broadcast of the Giants\u2019 missteps <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/03\/12\/sports\/how-giants-hard-knocks-fallout-scared-the-rest-of-the-nfl\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">scared every other team<\/a> away from participating in a 2025 version.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"32973892\" width=\"734\" height=\"418\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Screenshot-2024-07-30-at-9.27.53-PM.png\" alt=\"Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen on Hard Knocks\" class=\"wp-image-32973892\" style=\"width:734px;height:auto;aspect-ratio:1.75643225;display:block\"  \/>The 2024 Draft saw the Giants attempt to trade up in order to draft a quarterback. Hard Knocks\/HBO<\/p>\n<p>NFL Films seemingly tried to pivot to Bill Belichick\u2019s first season in the collegiate ranks with UNC, but that fell through <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/03\/04\/sports\/bill-belichicks-hard-knocks-deal-for-unc-suddenly-falls-through\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">in spectacular fashion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The training camp version of \u201cHard Knocks,\u201d featuring the Buffalo Bills, is in full swing, however.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Giants broke \u201cHard Knocks.\u201d The 2024 offseason version of the longstanding HBO show followed Big Blue and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[19438,20001,977,349,27557,99,1625],"class_list":["post-87011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-hard-knocks","tag-joe-schoen","tag-new-york-giants","tag-nfl","tag-saquon-barkley","tag-sports","tag-sports-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}