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A Hard Knocks Manifesto: The Real Reason Dudes Love It For 17 seasons HBO has picked a random team to follow during training camp. The games don't matter. Your favorite team is rarely featured. The stars of the show are often not the stars on the team. And you're watching practice, which most of us would never bother to do in person or otherwise. BUT... Hard Knocks gives us ex-high school or college or pick-up dudes something we secretly crave: To be back in a locker room every day with our buddies. Yeah, the football on Hard Knocks is cool and maybe if you're a huge dork or fantasy guy you'll spot something... And yeah, Liev Schreiber's voice is legendary... And yeah, we get a glimpse of a rookie who might be good or a QB on a new team (Aaron Rogers) or a coach who makes you want to head butt a cinder block (Dan Campbell) but what we REALLY love... Are the dudes screwing around on the field and in the locker room. The shit talking. The jokes. The pranks. The stupid conversations... The great conversations... Time with our boys... It's the oldest cliche in sports journalism, but ask a retired pro athlete what he misses most about playing and 99.9999% of the time he's going to say "the guys in the locker room". Dudes who thrived in that environment and then get stuck in an HR-dominated corporate world feel like they're suffocating. Entire hit shows (The Office) and movies (Office Space) hammer home how soul sucking and brain draining and deadening most offices can be - they're the total opposite of being on a sports team: The weight room. The workouts. The motivation. The constant physical and mental competition to be better. Hard Knocks gives a lot of cubicle dudes and desk guys and work-from-home zoom zombies a glimpse into the time of their lives when they may have had the most pure fun. Family, fatherhood, friends, it's all awesome as you get older... But deep down we'd all like to recaptures those team times as well. Some find it with BJJ, others CrossFit or Iron Mans or golf or whatever else fills that void... But nothing beats that feeling of fighting for greatness with your squad. Of testing yourself daily against your peers. Of ball busting and ripping on dudes you'd go to battle for... That's what Hard Knocks really delivers. If you're nodding your head while reading, share this and follow me @Jon_Finkel for more columns like it. And sign up for my Books & Biceps newsletter to get updates on my biography of the Macho Man Randy Savage.