‘Hard Knocks’ Could Either Make or Break the Jets as the NFL’s Punchline

The Jets have reportedly been chosen as the next franchise to appear on Hard Knocks, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. (A spokesperson for HBO declined to address the news when reached by email.) I’ll give you a minute to continue thinking what you are likely thinking (that this is a harbinger for some kind of disastrous, spectacular explosion of LOLJets content preceding a season of theatrical disappointment) before telling you that you might be wrong.

Yes, from the outside, there is some validity to the idea that Hard Knocks would represent another massive weight for the New York franchise to bear. The Jets transitioned from a two-year window of relevance and respectability under Rex Ryan into a cavern of disappointment, indifference and embarrassment. But like a lottery winner, their fortunes have once again changed dramatically and quickly. The butt of your collective jokes now possesses a Hall of Fame quarterback, and, simultaneously, the offensive and defensive rookies of the year. They are stepping onto an olympic racetrack after years of running Turkey Trots.

And, sure, our imagination naturally crafts the framework of the classic lottery winner’s story. The money is blown within weeks, and human nature returns the Jets to their unenviable place at the end of our punchlines. Aaron Rodgers flashes some passive aggression that is cited repeatedly. Visible factions form. The facade brittles and brakes. The internal chemistry devolves into something nuclear to the touch.

But what if the franchise can actually use the series to its advantage, improving on a blueprint Ryan crafted the last time the team was on HBO for a summer?

To be clear, I’m guessing that Robert Saleh and the rest of the folks actually in charge of the on-field product would rather practice atop a live volcano than have cameras following them around all preseason. I doubt anyone asked for this. But there is a privilege and opportunity in such pressure, which they no doubt realize.

Say what you will about Ryan, but he relished moments in front of the Hard Knocks cameras because it helped him instill his intended message: The Jets were not afraid of anyone anymore, that they were not to be slapped around and that their coach was not afraid of the dynasty percolating atop his division. The idea that someone else besides Bill Belichick could be smug and cocky—and, yes, optimistic even—had been completely sucked out of the thought catalog for every team in that conference. Ryan gave everyone permission to deny New England its ceremonial deference. That year, the Jets stunned the Patriots in the AFC divisional round with one of the greatest defensive game plans in postseason football history. While Hard Knocks had nothing to do with this, Ryan’s willingness to remain himself in the face of incomprehensible attention and hype created a pillar for these events to take place.

Saleh and the Jets could paint themselves a similar picture.

While different from Ryan in almost every way, Saleh’s aim has been remarkably similar: to separate the Jets from our entrenched ideas of what it means to be The Jets. We have written about this process somewhat exhaustively, from both the mouth of Saleh himself and the mouth of Sauce Gardner, one of the biggest stars the team has possessed in decades. Both of them are intimately familiar with that perception and are eager to change reality. What better way to do it than by jamming the new normal down our throats?

I think anyone who has been around the Jets for long enough could separate the team into different eras, following the dramatic end of the Ryan era and the beginning of the Saleh-Joe Douglas regime. Indeed, what is happening now is so different from the franchise’s lost years. It is more sustainable. It is more sensible. It is more carefully curated (another subject we wrote about here). Appearing on Hard Knocks would test all of this progress in real time. It would expose the Jets in a way they would probably prefer not to be exposed right now.

But it could also challenge us to think differently. It could begin to convert us. Like Bane and the darkness, the Jets have arrived here somewhat molded by chaos. They have made their mistakes. They have pinballed through the worst of it. Count me among those ready to see what they have learned before assuming they did not.