Steelers Could Appear on Hard Knocks Again in 2025
The Pittsburgh Steelers could be featured on HBO’s Hard Knocks again as soon as this year’s training camp.
The NFL and HBO have come out with new criteria for who may be excluded from appearing on the show for the 2025 season, as reported by Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated, and even though the Steelers were just featured on the in-season version of the show in 2024, they could be on it again this summer.
Starting in 2025, the in-season version of Hard Knocks will continue to feature an entire division, and the divisions will be set on a rotating basis, with every division featured once every eight years. So the Steelers and the rest of the AFC North will not have to worry about being on the in-season version of Hard Knocks again until 2032.
But when it comes to the original, training camp Hard Knocks — a show the Steelers have avoided appearing on since it debuted in 2001 — Pittsburgh will once again be thrown into the mix.
The only teams exempt from being forced to participate in Hard Knocks, starting in 2025, will be the team’s in that year’s in-season show, teams with a new head coach, and teams have appeared on the training camp version of Hard Knocks in the last eight seasons.
Before 2025, there was also a provision making exempt teams that had made the playoffs in at least one of the last two seasons. The success of the Steelers since the start of the show made them infrequently eligible. The Steelers missed the playoffs in two straight seasons just twice since 2001 — in 2012 and 2013 and 2018 and 2019. They were not selected in either of the two seasons they were eligible.
Since 2001, there have been 19 seasons of the training camp version of Hard Knocks, three seasons of single-team, in-season Hard Knocks and one season of an offseason Hard Knocks.
The Dallas Cowboys have appeared on the show three times, in 2002, 2008 and 2021. The New York Jets (2010 and 2023), Cincinnati Bengals (2009 and 2013), Miami Dolphins (2012 and 2023 in-season) and Los Angeles Rams (2016 and 2020) have all appeared twice.
There has been no word about the fate of the offseason version of the show, which became infamous in 2024, after New York Giants general manager Joe Schoen was lambasted for his handling of the team stepping away from star running back Saquon Barkley.
That reportedly led to few NFL takers for the show, and a near-deal with the University of North Carolina to film Bill Belichick’s first offseason as head coach, but that also fell through.
The league will announce the team for training camp Hard Knocks and the division for in-season Hard Knocks later this year.