HBO Hard Knocks featured their third episode of the emmy winning show featuring the Chargers and Rams. Eric Williams and I review the third episode.
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00:00Hey, welcome in. Eric Williams here with Sports Illustrated. I cover the Rams.
00:04I'm, of course, here with Fernando Ramirez, who covers the Chargers.
00:07We're going to recap Hard Knocks Episode 3, which I thought began a little bit spicy
00:11with a certain receiver coach getting after his players with some salty language.
00:16Fernando, do you want to go into that a little bit?
00:18Yeah. Coach Phil McGegan, he's a receivers coach who is very energetic,
00:23and I've seen him, we've seen him on the sidelines before.
00:26And he gets very animated. He gets in players' faces.
00:29But it's because he shows that tough love.
00:31And last night he was telling these guys, if you don't block, you're not going to make this team.
00:35And honestly, right now, Eric, the third-wide receiver spot is up for grabs.
00:40And even with Mike Williams' injury, somebody's going to need to step up.
00:44So Phil was just telling them, hey, you guys need to step up, you guys need to block.
00:48And that's not coming from him. That's coming from Anthony Lynn.
00:51So you know Anthony Lynn being a former running back, what does he want?
00:54His receivers to block.
00:56So Phil was letting them know. He was kind of chewing them out a little bit.
01:00And, I mean, we saw it. You're going through the film, and he's chewing these guys out.
01:04And he's like, what is that? What is that?
01:06Pretend like that's your kid and you need to protect him.
01:08It was pretty interesting stuff.
01:10And then we go to the Keenan Allen versus Chris Harris Jr.
01:13That's been a crazy rivalry for years now.
01:16And it's gotten a little fun with both Keenan and Chris.
01:21There's a scene where Keenan says Chris Harris can hold his jockstrap.
01:26And then Chris Harris Jr. yells at Charger fans,
01:29how many catches did Keenan Allen have today?
01:31Nothing. Nothing.
01:33So it's just one of those things where that rivalry is getting fun.
01:36And the funniest part is they both, when they're talking about it,
01:41Chris Harris Jr. says, I wish Phil was here.
01:44I would love to have Philip Rivers here.
01:46And you just start laughing, and then Keenan goes, well, our rivalry,
01:49he basically says our rivalry started because of Phil,
01:51because of the way Phil talks.
01:53But it would have been very fun to see Philip Rivers here
01:56with Chris Harris Jr. and Keenan Allen.
01:59And then we kind of got an inside look about Melvin Ingram's contract situation.
02:02He wanted guaranteed money.
02:04And he gets it.
02:06He picks off Justin Herbert and he says,
02:08that's why I wanted my money guaranteed, because I'm worth it.
02:12And, I mean, he has been a pro bowler the last few years.
02:14So he's one of those guys that you know what you're going to get with him,
02:18but he was here.
02:19He didn't hold out.
02:20He wasn't a distraction, kind of the way Melvin Gordon was last year.
02:23He was here.
02:24He was with the team.
02:25And he's been an extra coach on the field for them.
02:27And you can tell that's really helped a lot of the guys.
02:29So, for more on the Rams, here goes Eric.
02:33I thought it was cool to get to see Papa Favre on Zoom.
02:37I didn't know about the relationship between Brett Favre and Kent Johnston,
02:40who actually used to be the strength coach for the Chargers,
02:43was the strength coach for the Green Bay Packers during Favre's time there,
02:47and actually served as Favre's best man.
02:49And so he went on Zoom to talk to Clay Johnson, who's a linebacker now,
02:53a rookie linebacker for the Rams,
02:55and kind of give him some words of wisdom, a little bit of pep talk.
02:58They actually showed an old photo of Favre, you know,
03:00holding Clay in his hand like a football.
03:03I thought that was a pretty cool moment in the episode to kind of show some
03:07perspective in terms of that family and what they mean to the league.
03:11The other thing that was kind of weird was Juju,
03:14the rookie safety from Fresno State,
03:17wearing the toothpick in his mouth during practice.
03:20I've never seen that ever in football.
03:22I've seen guys have gum in their mouths.
03:24I've seen guys have a chew of Copenhagen, which is kind of odd, plain.
03:29I've seen hard candy, you know,
03:30anything to kind of have in your mouth while you're playing,
03:33but I'd never seen a sharp object like a toothpick.
03:36It kind of brought me back to my days in junior high school.
03:38We used to have the cinnamon toothpicks.
03:40I wonder if it had any kind of flavor to it.
03:42I wanted to ask him about that.
03:43And then I also wanted to ask him,
03:44how'd you got his mouthpiece and toothpick in at the same time?
03:47So I had to do a little bit of investigating at practice,
03:49talk to Juju a little bit.
03:52Lastly, just seeing SoFi Stadium, I think, for fans was interesting.
03:57And just to be able to see the amazing facility
04:00and the players kind of experience that, see the field and all that.
04:04And then Aaron Donald just doing Aaron Donald things, you know, again,
04:07and conservatively, I thought he had five sacks, maybe more.
04:10They really had no plan to block him and struggle to deal with him.
04:15And I think that bodes well for the Rams during the regular season.
04:19Last thing, David Edwards, yes, we saw it.
04:21The straw poked you in the eye.
04:23Maybe you need some goggles or something like that,
04:25some protection when you're drinking your drink during the meetings.
04:28It was a pretty funny moment.
04:30All in all, I thought it was a good episode, Fernando.
04:32That'll do it for us here.
04:34We'll be back next week for another recap of Hard Knocks.
04:40END