HBO’s Hard Knocks is considered one of the most popular sports-related television shows. The series featured the Baltimore Ravens in 2001 and the Dallas Cowboys in 2002, closely following teams during training camp and in their preseason games.
After production stopped in 2002, the revival of the franchise came in 2007 and the Kansas City Chiefs were selected as the first team for the show’s return. Fans in and outside of Kansas City were ecstatic for the return of Hard Knocks. However, not every NFL player shared the same sentiment.
Former Chiefs tight end Jason Dunn opened up about Hard Knocks and his career.
Former Kansas City Chiefs tight end Jason Dunn recently joined me on my podcast, Farz Cast. I brought up his infamous moment on the first episode where he was disgruntled about being placed on the second floor at the dorms to start training camp. Dunn mentioned that the cameras followed him closely while he voiced his displeasure at then-Chiefs head coach Herm Edwards.
Dunn said he was not a fan of the cameras and called that the “worst season ever with Kansas City.” He said the cameras were the start that put the Chiefs to where they were that year, starting 0-2 and finishing 4-12 with a nine-game losing streak to end the year.
“It’s not just the distraction of it,” Dunn said. “What you start finding out from other guys is that everyone starts playing to the camera. Everyone is trying to become their own actor.
“The cameras sometime come in to capture things, that’s fine. But being as intrusive as they are, a complete distraction. You start becoming a ham to the camera.”
Former Independence Community College head coach Jason Brown was featured on Netflix’s Last Chance U for two seasons in 2017 and 2018. Independence went 2-8 in 2018 during the fourth season of Last Chance U. In an interview on Fox Sports 1, Brown said a lot of coaches and players wanted to go “Hollywood” because of the cameras.
Brown mentioned in the FS1 interview that lots of players, who were not recruited by the college, showed up in 2018 because they wanted to play solely because they wanted to be on Netflix. Brown said in the interview that while they did not allow those guys to be on the team, they did enroll in classes as the college. Those students still got close to the players at the dorms, causing a distraction with the cameras.
Dunn can relate to Brown’s experience being on TV while trying to get a job done on the field. Although Last Chance U features younger players, the Chiefs had a lot of inexperienced players in 2007 who were close to the same age as the players you see on Last Chance U. Dunn mentioned that having a lot of young players at training camp that year had a hand in the distractions with the cameras.
“It absolutely destroys teams,” Dunn said. “Some guys don’t understand how to embrace having these things and not making it a distraction. All of a sudden, the cameras are there and you’re trying to look at the cameras. Nobody is paying attention like they should.”
Dunn said part of the reason the Chiefs were featured on Hard Knocks was because of Edwards and his experience dealing with the New York media while he coached the Jets prior to joining the Chiefs.
“He’s a colorful guy. He was a color analyst. That’s who Herm is. That’s why he was very good on TV because he can play to that. I think that is why he might have accepted it because coming from a big media place like New York, he was more used to it.”
Dunn said he did not care to watch the episodes as they came out. However, he learned that a lot of the players were following the show each week and wanted to know if they were prominently featured and how they were portrayed.
“I think there probably needs to be a better job of how you control the cameras themselves where they are able to do their work and kind of make it organic where guys aren’t playing to it. But still not being so intrusive where they are taking away from guys being focused on what they need to do.
“There were some funny moments that were captured. But ultimately, to me, I just felt like it was a distraction. But that’s TV. That’s how TV works.”
Stay tuned for more memorable interviews and guests, including more from Dunn and other Chiefs figures, at Farz Cast here.