Hard Knocks Postmortem

Ideally I would have liked to do a weekly recap of Hard Knocks but there was no guarantee that I would actually get to watch it as appointment television every Wednesday night. But now that's it over I'd like to give a postmortem.

I normally hate stuff like this when it comes to my team. If this was the first season of Hard Knocks I would have been watching looking through the spaces in my fingers as I covered my eyes expecting the worst. But I've watched a few seasons of Hard Knocks and NFL Films does such a good job that I was actually looking forward to Training Camp with the New York Jets.

Although Darelle Revis was the most important story of Jets camp, it was far and away my least favorite story on Hard Knocks. Living in New York, we were inundated with Revis hold out stories. I like Hard Knocks because you gets to see undrafted rookies trying to make the team or two guys fighting over a starting job.

The most jarring thing to see on the show was someone getting cut and it has a lot to do with the way Mike Tannenbaum does it. He greets you went you walk in and matter-of-factly tells you that they are going to let you go essentially as your ass is hitting the chair. Then another couple of sentences about how they appreciate they effort they gave and that's it. Dream crushed. Fascinating television.

I read and heard a lot that Rex Ryan was playing over the top for the cameras. I disagree. There were no HBO cameras around when he was telling everyone the Jets should be the favorites in the AFC Championship game or apologizing that the Jets season was over at 7-7. Like him or hate him, he doesn't have a filter between his brain and his mouth and I believe what you see is what you get.

I'm not above being propagandized by television. Last year I finished last season's Hard Knocks with the Cincinnati Bengals thinking 2009 was going to be Chris Henry's breakout year. I drafted him on my fantasy team and everything and now we all know what happened to him. Here is my list of ways I was propagandized by this season of Hard Knocks:

-LaDanian Tomlinson might not be done yet. He's not going to play at a Hall of Fame caliber level but I think he's going to help more than he's going to hurt.

-If I was rich and had 250 dollars laying around to get a random authentic Jets jersey, John Connor would be in my top 3 choices.

-For a guy that played 8 games and had 2 solo tackles last year I was devastated to learn that Ropati Pitoitua was going to miss the season. That guy looks huge and pretty quick for his 6-8 315 frame. I was actually comfortable with him being part of the defensive line rotation.

-I don't care if he was the 1st round draft pick this year. Admit your mistake and cut Joe McKnight. He never really lived up to the hype of being the best high school football player in the country and he looks light years away from being an NFL player. Chauncey Washington deserved to be on this team.

The Kellen Clemens thing was insane to be in the room for. First you see Kellen Clemens saying that he just wants an opportunity to have a legit shot at a competition for a starting job in the NFL the within the half hour he's faced with a decision to be released or take a pay cut to be 3RD STRING. He takes the pay cut to be the emergency quarterback. That strikes me as a guy that would rather just be employed in the NFL than compete for a job anymore. I used to feel bad for him because he really hasn't had a fair shake. The one year he got to start a few games, it was behind one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL. Maybe he was just blindsided by Tannenbaum's honesty and bluntness.

Mike Westhoff was probably the real star of Hard Knocks for me. I always knew he was a respected special teams coach he pulls no punches when talking about players good or bad and I found him to be a pleasure to watch.

I think the Jets will be competitive this year. I think they will have a very similar regular season as last year. The reason I don't think they'll be that much better is because Mark Sanchez still isn't that good yet. You hear people say he's grown enormously as far as being a leader and having it being his huddle. That's great an all but that doesn't really help his decision making once the ball is snapped. Hard Knocks made him a likable guy (which he was already) but it also highlighted his immaturity.

I would have liked to see more of Shonn Greene. I still don't know much about him as a person. I also would have liked to see the whole Tony Richardson being cut for the day situation. I still don't get that. I think the Jets pissed off some veterans by getting rid of Thomas Jones and Alan Faneca and resigning Tony Richardson so quick was less of a roster shuffle they had to do when Revis was signed as it was a backpedal based on the Jets players reaction.

All and all I loved every second of Hard Knocks. I'll watch it again next year but it'll never be the same as having your team as the star.