HBO's Hard Knocks Director Talks NFC East's 2025 Heartbreaking Twist & What's Next

Shannon Furman headed to Philadelphia for the latest season of Hard Knocks: In Season, but her journey with the Eagles ultimately ended in sadness for all involved. Furman, a four-time Emmy winner and supervising producer at NFL Films, has been with the HBO documentary franchise for the better part of 20 years, having started as a segment producer on the 2008 and 2009 Training Season incarnations before rising to head and supervising director for seasons 16, 17 and 19 of said series.

Furman makes her Hard Knocks: In Season debut with the show's fifth season, which has revolved around the NFC East and their heated race for success in the playoffs and beyond, particularly after the Philadelphia Eagles won the 2025 Super Bowl. Furman worked as the supervising director for the Eagles this season, which came to a surprising close for her and the other directors as the NFC East was shut out of the playoffs when the Eagles, who broke a 21-year drought by becoming repeat division champions, were defeated by the San Francisco 49ers in the Wild Card playoffs.

Now, with the season having come to a close, ScreenRant's Grant Hermanns interviewed Shannon Furman to discuss Hard Knocks: In Season season 5. In looking at the initial idea to chronicle the NFC East's season, the director explained that the hope of chronicling a division for the in-season show is "that you're going to get a team in the playoffs every year," while also working to "take a little bit of the mystery out if you end up with somebody whose season's already over by week 13":

Shannon Furman: Now, you have four teams, so you'll have lots of different stories going on. There'll be years when maybe you get three teams in the playoffs, like the NFC West has this year. Then this year, the NFC East, unfortunately they only got one team in. Last year was the AFC North, and there were two teams in the playoffs. They ended up having the Ravens and Steelers even playing each other in the first round. So we just thought it was a better way to make sure that the storytelling continued for hopefully longer for HBO, and just a way to give teams a break, in case their season wasn't going the way that maybe they had planned week one.

Reflecting on the time spent with the Eagles in the wake of their Wild Card defeat, Furman acknowledged that she and her Hard Knocks cohorts "were kind of bummed" to see their team lose, especially after having won the Super Bowl in 2025 and having "had so much fun" this season. She also explained how her and her co-director, Michelle Navarrete, are part of the South Jersey-based NFL Films team, in which there is "a large base of people that are built-in Eagles fans" and thus it was both "pretty awesome" to get to work with the Philadelphia team while also being "super sad" the season's over:

Shannon Furman: Even though it didn't end the way we wanted it to, we were still there when they won the NFC East, so we got to be part of the T-shirt hat game, and stuff like that. So, for all of us, it was kind of like a dream project. We were a bunch of kids who grew up in South Jersey and Philly, and this was our team as kids. And then, we got to be around them coming off of the Super Bowl, and then, like I said, winning the division title. So yeah, we wish it went longer. Unfortunately, only one out of the 32 teams can win, and it wasn't one of ours this year, but maybe one year we'll get that on Hard Knocks.

Looking at the HBO show's future, Furman explained that she does not yet know what's to come for Hard Knocks: In Season for two key reasons. The first is that new season planning "starts happening around the time of the owner's meetings," which begin in March and is when both the teams and NFL Films "start figuring out what they think makes the most sense" for making the focus.

The second, which Furman says with a laugh, is that said decisions "happen way above my pay grade," humorously expressing her wish to "pick which teams" they were to cover next Hard Knocks: In Season. Admitting she has "my favorites that I would like to work with," Furman concluded by saying that the announcement of next season's focus "will be coming up in the next few months."

Hard Knocks: In Season Requires A Massive Amount Of Communication Between Every Director

ScreenRant: As one of the leads on this show, what it was like covering the NFC East this season, and really ensuring that each team was getting their fair voice presented in these documentaries, even in spite of the troubles that many of them were facing.

Shannon Furman: Yeah, so I was the director for the Eagles. That's what we kind of do, is we have different teams of people with each team. So I was with the Eagles, specifically, but it is important for us to still make sure every team is somewhat balanced. The Eagles might've gotten more screen time in certain weeks than maybe the Giants would've gotten. But when you're getting guys like Dexter Lawrence and Brian Burns to give you access, you want to tell their stories too. They've been big parts of the league for a long time. The amount of communication that goes on behind the scenes on this show is crazy. This was my first year. I ran the summer show for 10 years, so I stepped away from that this year. And then, I was on the in-season show, which I hadn't done. We used to do a show called All Or Nothing for Amazon that was similar to this, and I hadn't done that since 2017, so I was kind of dipping my toes back into this. We are in meetings all the time, just saying what each other's getting each week, which players we're working with, what we're doing, just so that we can make sure that the shows are balanced, that we're not doing too much. We like to be efficient. We don't like to ask guys for extra things if we know there's no way we can get it into the show that week, or maybe in a future week. So yeah, it's just a lot of communication constantly with all four cities, with the people back at home that are running things to see what they need, what storylines are working. We just have to be constantly in touch with each other, just seeing what everybody's getting so that we do make sure that we can keep things balanced for each team.

ScreenRant: Going on that note then, what storyline maybe surprised everyone on the team this season that really was standing out as the season progressed?

Shannon Furman: I think one of the things — which didn't surprise me, because I worked with him back with the Jets in 2011 — was that Brian Schottenheimer came across really well on the show from the Cowboys. That was one of the things that I know a lot of Cowboys fans said they weren't too sure about that hire when it first happened. But I think this show did a ton to let people see what kind of a guy he was. I think a lot of Cowboys fans now are excited about the future with Brian Schottenheimer. I know with the Eagles, the Eagles have so many stars. So, just trying to figure out each week how to get everybody into the show [was tricky]. It wasn't really a surprise to me, but my favorite scene was with Cooper [DeJean] and Reed [Blankenship] and their celebrations. They were just really fun to work with. I didn't totally know with Cooper only being a second-year guy. We've seen his podcasts and stuff like that, but just such pleasant people to be around the building, super friendly and fresh and fun. They were just a lot of fun for us to be around this season.

ScreenRant: That brings me to another question that I especially love hearing from documentarians, which is that you have to really build a relationship of trust with players, with coaches, whoever, to really allow themselves to be vulnerable on camera. I think about Zach Ertz's injury this season, and how it was portrayed. What is it like finding that trust with everybody in an NFL team?

Shannon Furman: I think with a guy like Zach Ertz, he's been around for a long time, and he had a rapport previously with the director that was down there. You're just constantly building these relationships. I think the approach I take is I just try to be myself. I try to be authentic and tell people a little bit about me. So it's not like I'm just always asking them for things, it's not like I'm just looking for them to film something with me. I kind of let them know why I love telling stories, why I want to tell the stories of people in the NFL. I think one of the best examples I have of that goes back to when we did the Jets in 2023 for summer Hard Knocks. It was the first time I had ever met Aaron Rogers. I had never worked with him previously. They wanted me to sit down with him the first day that we got to training camp. So, we had a meeting, we just met in some random conference room at 10 in the morning, and when Aaron walked into the room, we just started talking about life. It wasn't talking about Hard Knocks, or what we needed from him, what he needed from us. It was just kind of like, "Hi, I'm Shannon. I've been doing this for 21 years. I love telling stories. This is my favorite thing I've done." So I just try to be myself and get to know people on a personal level, so that they kind of understand where I'm coming from before we start going out and capturing these things, and putting microphones on people, and in spots that might end up being like the Zach Ertz situation. I think with Zach, it was just a previous relationship with the director down there. He trusted him from things that they had done together in the past. It goes back to communication again with him. We are talking with him about that moment and how he's feeling. "Are you going to be okay with this? How do you want us to handle it?" We work with them to figure out the best way to do that to make sure that the player is comfortable with it.

ScreenRant: Who are some of the teams that either you haven't worked with yet or you have, and you're just eager to get back to them? Who are some of the teams you'd love to work with?

Shannon Furman: I love working with the Detroit Lions. I got to spend a lot of time with them. I did summer Hard Knocks with them in 2022, and then I did Quarterback with Jared Goff, and then receiver with Amon-Ra St. Brown. They didn't make the playoffs this year either, but I mean, their franchise is in such a good place. It's been really cool to be around that city and see the football team coming back to life. So, I'm sure whenever the NFC North is in the show, I will be with the Detroit Lions doing that team. I like working with the Buccaneers, also. They have some people down there that I've worked with a bunch, and they're PR staff and their [other] staff has kind of stayed together. We were there in 2017 for Hard Knocks, and they still have some guys on that team, and Lavonte David, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin who were there when we were there, which is unheard of in this day and age. But yeah, doing the Eagles this year was the top of the list for me, but the Lions are my next favorite team I like working with.

ScreenRant: Before I let you go, another question I'm always curious about from the Hard Knocks team, is there anybody who you've worked with, especially since you've been with this franchise as long as you have, who you had to fight being starstruck over in sitting in a room with them or working with them for this show?

Shannon Furman: That's a good question. I don't know if it was star struck, but it was probably that moment with Aaron that I spoke about earlier, just because having not had any previous experience with him, and then he just walks in the room as this larger-than-life character. I felt like we instantly became friends. We had such a great rapport with him that summer, and he was so great to work with. Obviously, people hear all the different reports, and have their own opinions on him, whatever it is. As just a working relationship that summer, and documenting where he was at that point, we had a blast with him. He made our show better. We had high hopes for the Jets. Unfortunately, it didn't go the way we had expected, but he was someone who definitely was larger than life going into that whole thing and the stuff you heard about. And it turned out to be a very pleasant surprise, and we all really enjoyed our time with him. ​​​​​Other than that, we worked with JJ Watt my first year on summer Hard Knocks, when he was in the prime of his career, and we were able to do a ton of stuff with him and just made him look like — I mean, he was Superman, but we got to make him look like Superman even more than he already was. So, it was pretty cool to be there in his prime, and document everything that was going on with him. And then we had Antonio Brown. We had him in Raiders camp when there were all kinds of stuff going on. I wouldn't say it was star struck, but it was definitely an experience riding in a hot air balloon with him and then just all the stuff that went on that whole camp. So, a different spectrum of experiences with three different stars, definitely different perspectives on each one, but all interesting experiences nonetheless.

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  Release Date 2021 - 2023-00-00

  Network HBO

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    Liev Schreiber

    Self - Narrator (voice)

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  Hard Knocks: In Season - Season 5

  Release Date December 2, 2025

  Network HBO

  Episodes 8