Week 3 of Hard Knocks Shows Us Everything But What We Needed To See
Credit: Steve Roberts-Imagn Images
It’s Tuesday night! You know what that means: another episode of Hard Knocks is here to deliver me from watching Season 83 of The Voice or whatever. Let’s get into it!
This week’s episode should be named “The Margherita Pizza Episode” because it felt like getting a margherita pizza. Sure, it might be good to eat, but how excited can you really get about it? Speaking of pizza, was like HBO was a delivery driver and they forgot to bring one of the most important items of the week… but we’ll get to that a bit later.
They start the episode off in Baltimore with a biographical segment on the stud Ravens linebacker, Roquan Smith. Fire up a highlight reel of this guy and he is a complete monster. We hear how much Smith looks up to Ray Lewis and how similar their play is. It didn’t quite hit for me — I’d feel better about watching the tribute to the Hall of Famer if it wasn’t for a particular heading on his Wikipedia page that you can explore on your own time.
Now we’re at MetLife Stadium to see the Ravens square off against the New York Football Giants. This game went exactly how we all thought it would go. The Ravens handed the Giants their 12th loss of the season while picking up their ninth win. Good for them, I guess.
We then head to Cleveland to see coach Kevin Stefanski pleading with the Browns to stay motivated during the final part of the season, now knowing they can’t make the playoffs. HBO then runs an amazing piece of Denzel Ward and his beautiful relationship with his late father that inspired Ward’s Make Them Know Your Name Foundation. The foundation concentrates on the heart disease epidemic and helps bring more knowledge of CPR and the use of an automated external defibrillator. Ward’s passion has made him the Brown’s nomination for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year. I couldn’t even make a joke after seeing that, and we all know that Kansas City walked into Cleveland’s stadium and dog-walked them.
On Sunday, Denzel was announced as our Walter Payton Man of the Year nominee and accepted his award alongside his mom, Nicole, for the work they've done with their @MTKYN_ foundation.
Repost to vote @denzelward for the #WPMOYChallenge! pic.twitter.com/YwIAnLbWGy
— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) December 17, 2024
Finally! We’re in Queen City! They open up the Bengals segment showing Joe Burrow driving a golf cart with backup quarterback Jake Browning riding shotgun and the star wide receiver duo of Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins in the backseat. I gotta say, it would look a hell of a lot cooler if they were in the Batmobile. Regardless, the scene accurately reflected the 2024 season. It was just a highlight of Burrow and the offense driving with the defense nowhere to be found.
They cut to practice and you see Joey B and Sam Hubbard talking, and the Blonde-haired Boy Wonder tells Hubbard that he still thinks they can make the playoffs. As a Bengals fan, hearing No. 9 say that… you can’t help but have a little hope. I’m gonna get hurt again this season, aren’t I? Joe then asks Bengals offensive guard, Alex Cappa if playing on the offensive line is fun. Which is a weird question. If any one person should know for certain that playing on the offensive line for the Bengals is not fun, it’s Joe Burrow.
They then cut to Burrow throwing the ball to Chase and he says, “Sometimes it just becomes one of those games where Ja’Marr is going crazy, basically whatever the look is, I’m just throwing to him.” We see a beautiful highlight reel of the amazing things that the Triple Crown front-runner is capable of. It’s a good thing the Bengals have already extended this guy, right? Right??? Aw, dammit.
We see Ja’Marr get into a cryotherapy chamber, and for the first time this season, fans get a look at something that gets colder than the Bengals’ defense. Then in Cincinnati’s feel-good segment of the week, they show Chase passing out toys to kids like Jameis Winston passing out interceptions. OK, I had to make at least one Cleveland joke.
Now we’re at the Bengals’ big victory in Nashville against the Tennessee Titans. Remember when I said that HBO failed to deliver something this week? It’s not just a “something.” It was the most talked about Bengals news of the week, the heated conversation between Burrow and Zac Taylor.
A Breakdown of Joe Burrow talking to Zac Taylor at the end of the game pic.twitter.com/bIBtruFASM
— Cincinnati 💔 (@CincyProblems) December 16, 2024
They showed the aforementioned Hubbard scoring his first career touchdown catch after Taylor put him in at tight end. With that score, Hubbard is now tied with Deebo Samuel for touchdowns this season with one. And now he’s hurt! Bengals gonna Bengals.
We also get to relive Geno Stone’s Pick-6 on Sunday, but once you begin to buy into there being some promise on the Bengals defense, we are then reminded of Jordan Battle’s fumbled touchdown/touchback or whatever you want to call it. Once again: Bengals gonna Bengals.
OMG Jordan Battle no wayyyyyyy. That's a fumble and a touchback, instead of a Bengals touchdown.pic.twitter.com/J165Izf64O
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) December 15, 2024
But nope, absolutely nothing about the Burrow and Taylor conversation.
We end the episode in Pittsburgh where the fine folks at HBO now do a segment on Mr. Unlimited, himself, Russell Wilson. They do a flashback montage of the Dangerwich Subway Sandwich’s career. He shares a moment with the film crew about his rookie season. And, who cares? We’ve seen enough of Pittsburgh for one episode, but the part where they got beat by the Philadelphia Eagles in the Battle of Pennsylvania was pretty cool.
The voice of Hard Knocks then tells the crowd that next week all four teams will be involved in AFC North battles, with the Bengals against the Browns in a must-win for Cincy and a matchup between the Steelers and Ravens.
Until next week, Go Chargers!
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