Football fans saw one AFC East team prepare for the 2023 NFL season on HBO’s hit documentary series Hard Knocks over the summer. Starting in just over a week, they’ll have the opportunity to follow another team from the division as it attempts to make a playoff push.
Hard Knocks: In Season with the Miami Dolphins will premiere on Tuesday, November 21, the league and HBO jointly announced on Monday.
The 18-time Emmy-winning series chronicled the New York Jets during its preseason and will have all-access coverage documenting the division-leading Dolphins as they navigate their final eight games of the regular season. Camera crews will begin to follow Miami, 6-3, in real-time ahead of a November 19 meeting with the Las Vegas Raiders, per the NFL. Fans will get an inside look at the NFL’s top offense—which includes Tua Tagovailoa, Tyreek Hill, and Raheem Mostert—as well as defensive standouts Jalen Ramsey and Bradley Chubb.
“We can’t wait to show the world the incredible personalities on the Miami Dolphins and the unbelievable preparation they put into each game,” NFL Films senior producer Emily Leitner Cameron said in a release. “All that hard work, seven days a week, promises to deliver an exciting new chapter in this series that means so much to the NFL, HBO and football fans everywhere.”
Here’s what else football fans need to know before the show debuts.
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Hard Knocks Schedule, How to Watch
After the Dolphins iteration of Hard Knocks debuts next week, new episodes will debut on Tuesdays through January 9, and then subsequent Tuesdays for the duration of a potential Miami postseason run. So this in-season documentary series could end after Week 18 or stretch all the way through a Super Bowl appearance.
Episodes will air at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and will be available to stream on Max.
“It is thrilling for ‘Hard Knocks’ to be back in season with the extraordinary team at NFL Films and the Miami Dolphins,” said Nancy Abraham and Lisa Heller, co-executive vice presidents, HBO Documentary & Family Programming, in a release. “There is no better way to give HBO and Max viewers an exclusive inside window into what it really takes for a coach and a team to fight to get back to the NFL playoffs.”
Watch the Dolphins Hard Knocks Trailer
HBO released a trailer for this year’s in-season Hard Knocks on Monday morning.
“I’m very proud of the collective effort,” Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said at the start of the video as Dolphins highlights are shown. “And I saw no panic, no blink. People were confident as hell. This week was a big one for us as we move forward.”
A variety of accounts have posted the trailer to X, formerly Twitter, and the mantra for the show seems to be “Follow the fins as far as they go.”
What Do the Dolphins Think About Being on the Show?
Not every team is as enthusiastic as appearing on Hard Knocks as its fans may be.
The Jets publicly expressed concerns about appearing on the show last summer. And the extra attention that constantly being on camera can bring isn’t for everyone. That seems to include Tagovailoa, the NFL’s current leader in passing touchdowns this season (19). Miami was announced as this year’s in-season Hard Knocks team in late October, and the fourth-year QB was less than enthusiastic about it.
“I just like to keep things private in how I do things,” he said. “But this isn’t just about me. This isn’t something that’s for me. This is something for the entire team and the entire team has to figure out how they go about that as well. So I know having conversations with some guys in the locker room that for them, it’s going to be tough as well.”
Tagovailoa’s teammate, cornerback Xavien Howard, took things a little further.
“Hard Knocks is [expletive], especially during the season,” Howard said last month, via the Palm Beach Post. “No, I’m serious. I’m not a fan.”
Alternatively, McDaniel views being on the show as a sort of positive.
“If you’re getting done what your whole mission statement is, it’s going to be done under spotlight, so getting used to having weekly spotlight for this young team isn’t necessarily a bad thing either,” he said earlier this season.
The in-season version of Hard Knocks debuted in 2021 by following the Indianapolis Colts. The show covered the Arizona Cardinals last season. The traditional training camp version of the program began in 2001 and has run for 18 seasons.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.