This year’s Hard Knocks series started great, but it got progressively less great. Tuesday night’s finale was a whole lot of nothing wrapped around an extended highlight package from a preseason game in Detroit that no one cared about.
The last episode included the unexpected departure of defensive end Carl Nassib, who made the 53-man roster but who was cut the next day, when the Browns had to create roster spots for players claimed from other teams. Though I’d prefer not to witness those moments when young men learn their employment has ended, there was no need for any rubbernecking as to Nassib’s exit interview with coach Hue Jackson, which was so sanitized and antiseptic that it felt staged.
Nassib landed via that same waivers process with the Buccaneers, Tampa Bay deciding to claim him after the Browns let him go. And Nassib addressed his new Hard Knocks-free surroundings in Tampa.
“I’m glad now I can just focus on this,” Nassib said Wednesday, via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times. "[The Hard Knocks crew] are great people, but it’s nice when they’re not there.”
Of course, if Nassib had stayed in Cleveland, Nassib wouldn’t have had to deal with the Hard Knocks people, because Hard Knocks is now over. And it’s possible that the Bucs wouldn’t have been intrigued by Nassib if they hadn’t gotten to see and hear from him during Hard Knocks.