The Falcons Will Be This Year's Hard Knocks Team

The Atlanta Falcons announced today that they will be featured on this year's Hard Knocks, which comes as something of a surprise.

Not only will a team that crashed and burned to a 4-12 record last year be opening up training camp to HBO's cameras, but they'll be doing it voluntarily: By virtue of making the playoffs two seasons ago, the Falcons were one of the 24 teams who could say no to appearing on the show.

Atlanta's not the sexiest choice for the show—not when the likes of the Bears, Steelers, Giants, and Raiders could have been forced into appearing. But if we've learned anything from the previous eight editions of Hard Knocks, it's that we don't know a damn thing about how entertaining (or boring) most NFL players actually are until you stick cameras on them for five weeks.