Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Buffalo Bills’ on HBO Max, The Latest Installment Of The Long-Running NFL Docuseries

It wouldn’t be August without Hard Knocks. HBO’s long-running behind-the-scenes NFL docuseries is a fixture on the sports calendar, and this season, they’re shifting their lens to Western New York for the first time. Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Buffalo Bills looks at a team that’s been one of the league’s best over the past five years, but finds itself still hungry for a breakthrough.

HARD KNOCKS: TRAINING CAMP WITH THE BUFFALO BILLS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: After a brief cold-open with superstar quarterback Josh Allen sitting for his first interview, we get a montage of sorts as players pack their bags (literally) to head off for training camp in Rochester, New York. It follows the tone we’ve come to expect from Hard Knocks–slices of real life building up to the season.

The Gist: The structure of Hard Knocks is well-known by now. The filmmakers get unparalleled access, following players and coaches through practices, in the training room, the film room, and in their personal lives. It’s all very naturalistic, with occasional dramatic voiceovers from longtime narrator Liev Schreiber.

Photo: HBO Max

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? This is the twenty-fifth season of Hard Knocks, and the sixth year since the show split its format in two, with distinct training camp and in-season versions. At this point, Hard Knocks doesn’t remind you of anything else; other things remind you of Hard Knocks.

Our Take: By necessity and the nature of their relationship with the NFL, HBO has to rotate through teams when making Hard Knocks, and though the show is consistently excellent, the teams they profile often aren’t. I mean, c’mon… in 2018, they did a season on the Cleveland Browns. (I’m from Cleveland, I can take this shot.)

This season, though, the spotlight’s on a team with legitimate championship ambitions. After a long playoff drought, the Buffalo Bills have won five straight AFC East division titles, and they’re consistently one of the top betting favorites to win it all. They just haven’t quite gotten over the hump, and last season ended with yet another heartbreaking loss to the dynastic Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game. Fresh off his first regular-season MVP award, quarterback Josh Allen has only one thing left to prove, and that’s that he can bring Bills fans the Lombardi Trophy that’s eluded them for so long.

These Bills are loaded with veteran talent, but one of the hallmarks of Hard Knocks is putting a spotlight on less-familiar faces. The first episode introduces NFL fans to speedy Maxwell Hairston, a cornerback out of Kentucky who logged the fastest 40-yard dash in this year’s NFL Draft Combine, and who quickly develops a friendly rivalry with veteran back Tre’Davious White. After making several back-to-back Pro Bowls with the Bills, White suffered a series of injury-plagued seasons, followed by a brief detour to the Rams and Ravens in 2024. Back in Buffalo–and hopefully healthy again–White’s still grinding, running hill sprints on his own after practice.

Of course, it’s not the NFL without setbacks–late in the first episode, Maxwell goes down with a potentially-serious knee injury, one that’s going to keep him off the field for much of training camp. It’s a sobering reminder how quickly fates can change in the league, and how much has to go right for a team to fulfill their dreams.

Photo: HBO courtesy of AP

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: The most exciting part of the pilot (at least for me, I’m biased, I’m also an architect) is a visit by Allen and team owner Terry Pegula to the Bills’ under-construction new stadium, a towering replacement for aging Highmark Stadium that’s “scienced” (per Pegula) to keep the howling lake-effect winds from affecting his prize quarterback’s passing. To make a heavy-handed metaphor, it’s clear that the Bills are trying to build something lasting this season.

Sleeper Star: The footage from the film rooms and practice fields is always the most informative part of Hard Knocks, but it’s the away-from-the-game stuff that’s always the most fun, and that’s certainly the case here, as we get to see veteran offensive lineman Dion Dawkins spend his off day driving drift cars with his adorable children watching (and occasionally riding shotgun).

Most Pilot-y Line: “It’s like Pop Warner, first day you put the pads on, everybody want to fuckin’ hit,” running back Ray Davis observes before the first full-contact practice of camp. “That’s our day, though. We love this shit. We embrace it.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. It’s not the NFL season without Hard Knocks, and the Bills’ pursuit of elusive glory is one of the most compelling storylines of the upcoming season.

Scott Hines, publisher of the widely-beloved Action Cookbook Newsletter, is an architect, blogger and proficient internet user based in Louisville, Kentucky.