HBO's Hard Knocks ends its "snoozefest" Oakland Raiders season with a whimper

The Ringer

"This Raiders chapter of Hard Knocks was, alas, a drag," says Claire McNear. "For all the seeming intrigue of a team on the precipice—of leaving the city where it was formed, and maybe, just maybe, of success—we got a snoozefest instead. The move to Vegas went all but unaddressed, with exactly no sentimentality expended on the idea of playing one final season in Oakland—and in front of Oakland fans—perhaps because of (owner Mark) Davis’s own tense relationship with the city that refused to build him a stadium at the public’s expense. The preseason’s biggest question—what in tarnation is going on with Antonio Brown?—went unresolved: We got scant few details about the foot and helmet issues that have kept him off the field, and the show concluded with the wide receiver still riding the bench for the team’s final tuneup, a loss against the Seahawks. The show’s attempts to manufacture additional drama in the usual Hard Knocks mold—the heartbreak of a fan favorite getting cut, say, or a quarterback battle—were for naught: None of the would-be charmers ever really got the screentime necessary for investment, and the starting quarterback job still seems to be securely Derek Carr’s. Absent real drama, Hard Knocks left us to scour the oddities and footballisms—but even those were few and far between."