The Pittsburgh Steelers are one of five NFL teams that can be forced by the league to appear as the featured team on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” series in 2020.
On Monday, Steelers owner Art Rooney II spoke about this topic and made it clear that he isn’t interested in having his team featured on “Hard Knocks” this coming summer.
Rooney understands this is out of his power, noting “It’s not necessarily a volunteer-kind of situation anymore as you know.”
The league implemented a rule in 2013 that gave it power to force teams to be featured.
The conditions that make these five teams eligible to be forced by the NFL to appear on “Hard Knocks” this summer are as follows (h/t Sporting News):
- The team hasn’t made the playoffs in either of the last two seasons
- The team doesn’t have a first-year head coach
- The team hasn’t been on the program at any point in the last 10 years
This year, the other four teams are as follows:
- Detroit Lions
- Jacksonville Jaguars
- Arizona Cardinals
- Denver Broncos
Personally, while I’m sure Pittsburgh would be a huge draw, it’s the Cardinals I want to see. It’ll be the second year for head coach Kliff Kingsbury and quarterback Kyler Murray, and they have some intriguing talent that will lead to rising expectations.
It’s going to be fascinating to see which of these five teams ends up being chosen.