Is that something you’d like to see?
The NFL has been doing the Hard Knocks series for a long time now, but the Minnesota Vikings have never been the show’s featured team because they’ve never met the criteria to be compelled into doing it by the league. Now, the league has changed some of those rules, and as a result the purple are now among the teams that the league can pick to participate.
According to Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated, there are now three criteria that a team must meet in order to be among the eligible teams to do Hard Knocks. Those criteria are as follows:
- Team does not have a first-year head coach
- Team is not a member of the division that has been picked for the Hard Knocks: In-Season show for the upcoming season or a member of the division to be featured in the immediately subsequent seasons
- Team has not been featured on Hard Knocks during the previous eight seasons
There had been an exception that said that teams that have made the playoffs in at least one of the previous two seasons could not be made to do the show, but that has been rescinded.
The in-season version of Hard Knocks will rotate through the eight NFL divisions. The AFC North was featured last season, so if the league chooses to highlight the NFC North this season, the Vikings would not be eligible to do the Training Camp version of the show.
I’m not sure if I’d want to see the Vikings featured on Hard Knocks or not. I understand that the show offers a compelling look at the inner workings of Training Camp and things like that, but I’m not sure if it would be a distraction for the team or not. I’m sure that Kevin O’Connell and company would be able to keep things under control, but there’s always a possibility that things could get weird, I suppose.
In any event, we now might be seeing our favorite team on Hard Knocks this preseason because one of the things that would have prevented them from being made by the league to do the show is no longer in place. We’ll see what happens when the league announces their choice.