Why the Chiefs won't be on Hard Knocks this season

As of press time, no one is quite sure which NFL franchise will be the ones under the microscope—er, film crew—later this summer when cameras take to the field to record training camp for someone for another year of the docuseries, Hard Knocks. But one thing we do know is that it won't be the Kansas City Chiefs.

At the present time, there's not a single team in the NFL who wants to have the Hard Knocks crew around that pivotal part of the preseason in which teams are coming together for camp. It's a time of learning and growing and cameras can ruin the chemistry and community while also getting in the way of any experimentation.

The NFL does a good job of protecting certain teams from having to be on the show if they've hired a new head coach. That keeps a rookie from having to worry about how he looks as he's also trying to find his footing leading a new team. The NFL also keeps a team from having to be on the show too often by creating a 10-year grace period between appearances on the show.

No one is quite sure which NFL franchise will be the one under the microscope—er, film crew—but it will not be the Chiefs.

With those two rules in place, you might be thinking the Chiefs are still an option, but the third and final rule is that any team that has made the postseason in the previous two years does not have to be on the show. That means you can basically kiss any chances of seeing Patrick Mahomes or Travis Kelce on Hard Knocks out the door.

This year, the only candidates that meet all three rules are the New York Jets, New Orleans Saints, Washington Commanders, and Chicago Bears. While the Chiefs won't be featured, we could see former Chiefs with each team including Mecole Hardman with the Jets, Tyrann Mathieu with the Saints, GM Ryan Poles with the Bears, and Eric Bieniemy with the Commanders (among others).

As for the Chiefs ever being on Hard Knocks, newer or younger fans of the team might want to go back to 2007 and watch Herm Edwards, Bobby Sippio, and company prepare for the coming season. Nothing like watching a QB battle between Brodie Croyle and Damon Huard to make a fan appreciate watching Mahomes work his magic.