Here are a few highlights from Tuesday night’s show:
Iloka makes a costly mistake
The beat writers were surprised to see George Iloka, who is listed as the starter at strong safety, sitting out of practice Thursday with a curious wrist injury.
Thanks to the presence of the Hard Knocks cameras, we found out what happened Tuesday night.
Iloka got into it with rookie linebacker Jordan Campbell during a punt return and ended up throwing a couple of punches into Campbell’s helmet, the second of which broke the third metacarpal in Iloka’s right wrist.
Defensive backs coach Mark Carrier asked Iloka what he learned from the incident.
“Two things,” Iloka says. “One, I can’t let me emotions get the best of me. Number 2, if you’re gonna punch him, take his helmet off.”
Later Iloka is shown in head coach Marvin Lewis’ office explaining what happened. And while Lewis doesn’t yell, he clearly is annoyed by Iloka’s actions.
“You can’t do it on the field, so it makes no sense to do it,” Lewis says of the punches.
Zimmer’s tough love
There is more to being a coach in the NFL than teaching Xs and Os and techniques.
“The real coaches in this league understand how to lead men,” says running backs coach Hue Jackson, a former head coach with the Oakland Raiders. “And (Zimmer) does. He knows how to get it out of him. You don’t get it out of players in the National Football League with the sweetheart approach. You can’t speak from soprano and expect base.”
After cutting to a scene of a basic morning walkthrough, with Zimmer yelling at Dre Kirkpatrick, they show a sit-down interview with Adam Jones, who calls Zimmer the father he never had.
“He don’t take no (crap) from nobody,” Jones says. “I think it helped me a lot in my career because I haven’t been around a guy like that since college. I love him, man. He’s been great for me. He got me back playing my best football. At the end of the day, when you’ve got a guy like that, in the back of your head the only thing you think is ‘I don’t want to let myself down, and I definitely don’t want to let him down.’”
From there the focus shifts to the job Zimmer did with Vontaze Burfict, turning the undrafted free agent into the team’s leading tackler as a rookie.
Zimmer says he loves guys like Jones and Burfict because they are like him in that people doubt them.
“We’re all the same kind of guys,” Zimmer says. “People say I can’t do certain things. We’re all in the same boat. We’ve all got chips on our shoulders.”
It’s a mystery to many around the game why Zimmer hasn’t been given an opportunity to be a head coach. Maybe he’s been misunderstood. But it’s hard to imagine any NFL executive who might be in the market for a new coach next year not being intrigued enough by what he’s seeing on Hard Knocks to at least give Zimmer a call.
The rookie talent show
It takes one level of guts for a group of rookies to get up in front of their teammates and perform. It’s a whole other level for them to stand there and crack on the veterans, and the coaches.
The rookies take shots at Andrew Hawkins and A.J. Green, implying some diva treatment in wake of their injuries.
Margus Hunt impersonates special teams coach Darrin Simmons and uses the telestrator to diagram a play, causing the room, and most notably head coach Marvin Lewis, to burst out laughing.
And Trotwood-Madison High School graduate Roy Roundtree brings down the house with his impersonation of the ever eccentric Taylor Mays walking on to the field in a tutu and then light-stepping through drills.
The look-a-likes slide show was good, too, with the funniest being the one that compared Andrew Whitworth to Butterbean.
Maybin gets cut
The show opened with linebacker Aaron Maybin painting in his studio, and it ends with him drawing on Fountain Square and receiving a phone call to come to the stadium and bring his iPad and playbook.
It’s not as sudden or as gut-wrenching as the season-ending injury Larry Black suffered in the first episode. In fact, it was no surprise at all for those who follow the team closely. But it was still a poignant scene that illustrates the tough business of professional football.
The final act begins with team president Mike Brown speaking to the coaches about the upcoming cutdown dates and how there is no need for them to wait until Aug. 27 to start trimming the roster.
He suggests that Maybin, rookie wide receiver Tyrone Goard and rookie defensive back Troy Stoudermire should be let go immediately, and their position coaches agree.
Maybin was a first-round pick of the Buffalo Bills in 2009, selected 11th overall. In four short years, he has been cut by three teams.
After turning in his playbook and thanking head coach Marvin Lewis for the opportunity, we see Maybin walking out the door to the parking lot, where the show – and his career – fades to black.
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