We are a month away from the start of the NFL season, with training camp underway and the preseason starting this week for most teams.
For 31 teams, that means going about their business as usual, making decisions behind closed doors as they work towards setting their 53-man roster for the 2019 season. For the Oakland Raiders, it means it’s about time for everyone to get a behind-the-scenes look at their preparations for the season thanks to HBO’s Hard Knocks, which premieres Tuesday night and features quite the cast of characters, from coach Jon Gruden and GM Mike Mayock to star players like Antonio Brown and Derek Carr.
Oakland hopes the Carr to Brown connection can become one of the leagues top quarterback-receiver tandems, bringing their offense back to life in the process. However, there’s still a relationship on the field that needs to be built between the two. As we learned in a first clip from the Hard Knocks premiere, it’s still very early in their working relationship, so much so that Brown’s kids were a bit confused as to who was their dad’s quarterback now.
Hard Knocks returns tonight…. pic.twitter.com/z1wSkloqhs
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) August 6, 2019
It’s a pretty adorable clip, as Brown’s kids wonder where Ben Roethlisberger is, not fully realizing that the Steelers quarterback would not be joining Brown on his new team. It’s also funny considering the relationship between Brown and Big Ben soured to the point of the star receiver chucking a football at Roethlisberger in his last practice in Pittsburgh, leading to his trade request and subsequent departure.
Brown makes sure to point out Carr to his kids so they know who to watch throw their dad passes this season and beyond. The question is whether those two will be able to get on the same page and lift the Raiders from being among the NFL’s bottom-dwellers this season.
