The first episode of HBO's Hard Knocks was seen on Tuesday. Eric Williams and Fernando Ramirez have their thoughts on each team.
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00:00The first week of Hard Knocks is in the books, and we're here to talk about it.
00:03Welcome in. I'm Eric Williams with Sports Illustrated. I cover the Rams. I'm here with
00:07Fernando Ramirez. He covers the Chargers. Fernando, after the first episode, give us
00:13a couple thoughts. What did you think? I thought it was very well put together.
00:17I was surprised when Anthony Lynn said that he had COVID, and the way he kind of found out saying
00:22that he had seen it from a golf match where the guy was talking about how he felt weak,
00:28that he didn't know what he was, like, his body was just not reacting the way it usually does,
00:33and that's how he found out. And I was like, oh, wow. And the way the players reacted,
00:36you're like, oh, wow. Another thing from him is he kind of stole Derwin James' glasses. I mean,
00:43I was surprised. I was like, oh, wow, okay. And then Derwin's like, don't worry. I have a deal
00:48with them so I can get some more. Very interesting seeing Justin Herbert, who Austin Eckler had told
00:55us he might shine in hard knocks, and I mean, he did. He was standing back there flinging the
01:01football, and Anthony Lynn's like, oh, wow. That's great. So I was pretty interested in that. I
01:07thought it was very well put together. I think there was a little bit more Chargers than there
01:11was Rams, but I feel like that's how this is going to go. One week, it'll be probably more Rams than
01:16Chargers, but I thought it was very well put together. You saw a little bit about both teams.
01:21So what interests you from the show? Yeah, I think from my perspective, watching them document
01:27the difference in training camp this year with the COVID protocols and how they were going around
01:32and spraying and disinfecting everything, the social distancing, watching the players go through
01:37and take the COVID test and how they were reacting to it, and then kind of the process that they were
01:43going to go through each day just before they actually got to the locker room, what they had to
01:47do. I thought that part was interesting. I think they did a good job of just kind of giving that
01:51perspective to the viewer because obviously we can't be there. I think from Rams, just Sean McVay,
01:58I think we already knew that he had a big personality, but that came through even more,
02:02just his enthusiasm, and it was really infectious, and I think players really relate to that,
02:08and you can see why guys want to play for him. I thought that came through. The Jalen Ramsey stuff,
02:13we had kind of written about it last week. You were able to watch that as a viewer and see him
02:18kind of passionately talk about his contract situation and get a little prickly when he was
02:26asked by reporters about it. Interesting, again, to see how that moves forward. Is it going to get
02:32resolved? Is it going to be an issue at all? So interested to see how they continue to cover that.
02:38I think now that we've got to the first episode, though, is I want to see more stuff about football.
02:44I want to see the position battles. I want to see guys like Justin Herbert
02:48kind of emerge as more fully brought out characters through the next couple weeks
02:54and just kind of see the focus shift a little bit now that they covered all the COVID protocol stuff.
02:59I think that'll do it for us here. You can follow me at Sports Illustrated, the Ram site. You can
03:05follow Fernando at the Chargers site, and we'll be back here next week to recap week two.