'Quarterback' Was Insightful Without Being Invasive

The New York Jets made it clear that they didn’t want to be on Hard Knocks. “I know there are several teams that would love for Hard Knocks to be in their building,” head coach Robert Saleh said on June 9. “We’re just not one of them.” Aaron Rodgers offered a similar sentiment four days later. “Look, I understand the appeal with us,” he told KPIX TV. “There’s a lot of eyes on me, a lot of expectations for our squad. They forced it down our throats, and we have to deal with it.”

Alas, the Jets are on Hard Knocks. “We’re fine,” Saleh said. “We’ve been doing One Jets Drive the last couple of years. Just talking with Hard Knocks, they’ve got a great group of people working with us. We expressed some of our concerns, [and] they’ve answered [them]. It’s gonna be fine.”

Since 2014, the league has exempted teams from being on Hard Knocks season if they have a first-year head coach, made the playoffs in the last two seasons, or if they’ve appeared on Hard Knocks in the last decade. Saleh is entering his third season as the Jets head coach, and they haven’t made the playoffs since 2010, which coincidentally was the last time they were on Hard Knocks. Toss Rodgers into America’s largest media market, and you’ve got a winning recipe for reality television.

One Jets Drive is an Emmy-nominated docuseries the Jets have produced since 2018. The episodes are 20 to 30 minutes long, and it runs all season long. I haven’t seen it, but I’d assume they’re cautious with what they show. Viewers probably go into it with expectations about how curated it is. You’re not going to see Antonio Cromartie trying to recall his kids’ names on it. The team has editorial control. However, Peyton Manning and Patrick Mahomes produced Netflix’s Quarterback documentary, and it was well received. Mahomes, Kirk Cousins, and Marcus Mariota had the final say on what aired, but it felt authentic. Perhaps they found a middle ground that’s satisfying to the players, teams, and audience.

In a July 13 interview with KFAN, Cousins

Before Quarterback, we knew that Cousins drove a dented van and grilled weird meat. That he lives with his in-laws in the summer. The Cousins we saw in Quarterback was still goofy but also felt authentic. He quoted Margaret Thatcher and said that he kinda loved to get hit. But we also saw him reading to his children and having a bonfire in his backyard. The documentary definitely helped his approval rating. He didn’t come off as a completely different person in Quarterback. We just saw a different side of him. Most pertinently, we learned how much he puts into preparing for each game and how much punishment he took last year.

“I knew what I signed up for,” he said at a recent press conference,

He had so much fun that he volunteered Harrison Smith for the next doc.

Cousins emphasized that Smith eats raw, microwaved cheese, something Smith later confirmed on Twitter. But it’s not so much about the cheese as it is about allowing people to get a behind-the-scenes look at the players. Who are these guys and where do they come from? How does Smith, 34, still play at a high level? What are they sacrificing to try and win a championship?

Anyone who follows the Vikings closely knew that Cousins listened to the play calls in the car or that he had people who “put his body back together” after each game. He said as much in press conferences and media availabilities. But it’s another thing to see it. Instead of listening to music or a podcast, Cousins is hooking up recordings of his voice and listening to them in the car. We see him wince as the doctors relieve him of his injuries. You can feel a shiver when he gets into 50-degree water after the Washington Commanders game.

Hard Knocks is great, but teams rarely want to be on it. In-house productions like One Jets Way garner an audience, but they can feel more like infomercials than documentaries. Quarterback found a middle ground. It’s less raw than an HBO doc but felt more akin to Hard Knocks than an in-house production. A Quarterback-like training camp documentary would build hype for the season and let people in on the players’ lives. However, to do so, they’d have to find the balance between releasing something that’s genuine and doesn’t make them feel violated.