ESPN’s Chris “Mad Dog” Russo has been a New York sports fan for his entire life. But it sounds like he isn’t touching the latest season of HBO’s Hard Knocks featuring the New York Giants with a 10-foot pole.
On today’s edition of First Take, Russo was furious over a report that the Giants have editorial control over the content. He said that he won’t be watching the series under any circumstances because it has no legitimacy anymore.
“I wouldn’t watch that if I had insomnia,” Russo declared, via Awful Announcing. “The idea that this Hard Knocks with the offseason that the Giants have editorial control when they put it together – that’s ridiculous. You can’t do a five-part series on a football team with the machinations in the offseason and then tell me it’s legitimate television when the team that you’re doing it on has final editorial control.”
“You cannot allow them to have editorial control… They want to see it, they want to raise grief, they want to talk to Goodell about it… if you allow cameras in your locker room or in your front offices to show and chronicle the offseason, you gotta let it go. This is television, if you don’t like it, you don’t like it. But it’s good TV! It’s good for football! And the fact that the Giants will tell you what they want you to see, makes it not worthwhile. I wouldn’t watch that if it was in my backyard! I’d close the blinds!”
That’s a lot of passion to be pouring out for a show that he doesn’t plan on watching.
NFL teams have no interest in letting HBO see them internally exposed anymore and it’s reached the point where not a single team volunteers for it. So HBO has probably had to bend over backwards to get teams to give them any access at all.