The defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks will be getting a lot more shine this summer. It was announced at the league’s annual meetings this week that the Seahawks will be the featured team on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” this year. It’s the first time that the defending Super Bowl champion will be featured on “Hard Knocks” since the series launched in 2001 with the then-defending champion Baltimore Ravens.
The Seahawks have already had an interesting offseason, with the team signing star wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba to the largest-ever contract for a wide receiver (four years, $168.6 million) and also seeing players like Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III, Boye Mafe, Coby Bryant, Riq Woolen and more leave in free agency. Seattle will also be navigating the loss of former offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, who took over as the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.
Once the Seahawks get their run on “Hard Knocks,” they will be followed by their Super Bowl LX opponents, the New England Patriots, who will star on the show in 2027. This will be the first time that the Patriots are featured on the show, which is unsurprising given that they used to be run by Bill Belichick, and Belichick is perhaps the least likely coach in NFL history to have allowed his team to be spotlit on a television show.
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New England had the NFL’s biggest turnaround last season, riding a new coach in Mike Vrabel and an MVP-caliber season from Drake Maye to a 14-3 record, the No. 2 seed in the AFC and eventually a trip to the Super Bowl. The Patriots will of course play another season between now and the time they are featured on the show, and it’ll be interesting to see what type of position they are in heading into next summer.
The list of teams that have been followed on “Hard Knocks” is as follows:
| 1 | 2001 | Baltimore Ravens |
| 2 | 2002 | Dallas Cowboys |
| 3 | 2007 | Kansas City Chiefs |
| 4 | 2008 | Dallas Cowboys |
| 5 | 2009 | Cincinnati Bengals |
| 6 | 2010 | New York Jets |
| Special | 2011 | N/A |
| 7 | 2012 | Miami Dolphins |
| 8 | 2013 | Cincinnati Bengals |
| 9 | 2014 | Atlanta Falcons |
| 10 | 2015 | Houston Texans |
| 11 | 2016 | Los Angeles Rams |
| 12 | 2017 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers |
| 13 | 2018 | Cleveland Browns |
| 14 | 2019 | Oakland Raiders |
| 15 | 2020 | Los Angeles Rams, Los Angeles Chargers |
| 16, 17 | 2021 | Dallas Cowboys, Indianapolis Colts (in season) |
| 18, 19 | 2022 | Detroit Lions, Arizona Cardinals (in season) |
| 20, 21 | 2023 | New York Jets, Miami Dolphins (in season) |
| 22, 23, 24 | 2024 | New York Giants (offseason), Chicago Bears, AFC North (in season) |
| 25, 26 | 2025 | Buffalo Bills, NFC East (in season) |
| 27 | 2026 | Seattle Seahawks |
| 28 | 2027 | New England Patriots |
We don’t yet know which teams, if any, will be followed on the in-season version of “Hard Knocks” in 2026, but given the recent trend, it would not be surprising if HBO’s crew followed all four teams in a specific division. The offseason version of the show appears to have been short-lived, and it would be a surprise if another team allowed the cameras to follow them during the offseason program.
