After years of avoiding having his New York Giants appear on HBO’s Hard Knocks, co-owner John Mara is fairly pleased with how things turned out.
“It worked out about as well as I ever could have expected,” Mara said at an event on Thursday, via the New York Post.
“I was certainly a little nervous about it going in. It was a pretty honest depiction of what goes on, and I think people appreciated having that kind of access. … There were some uncomfortable moments in there, but all-in-all, I’m glad it’s over.”
Mara said years ago that the Giants would never appear on the popular program that allowed cameras into NFL facilities during training camp, saying it’ll happen “when I’m lying next to my father (Wellington) in Gates of Heaven Cemetery.”
Well, Mara is still very much alive and the Giants only agreed to let the cameras in during the offseason process — the first time HBO has tried the formula.
“The more discussions we had, they came to us and said, ‘We’d really like to call it ‘Hard Knocks’ because that has a certain brand and appeal,'” Mara said. “It took a few conversations to convince me to go along with that. I think it worked out fine.”
The five-episode arc focused on the Giants’ front office as they navigated through the NFL Combine, free agency frenzy, and the 2024 NFL draft.
There were several moments where Mara was seen meddling without really meddling, subtly voicing his opinions to general manager Joe Schoen and others.
“Every year there is going to be a personnel decision I’m not 100 percent in favor of,” Mara said, “but you let the general manager and coach — particularly if they have a unified conviction — make the decisions. And then bitch about it later.”
