The 2024 in-season edition of HBO’s docuseries Hard Knocks debuted on Tuesday, and everything was fine.

Nobody got hurt, not unless you’re talking about the Bengals fans who were once again forced to leave Paycor Stadium via the escaloser at the end of the Steelers 44-38 victory last Sunday.

The Steelers players and coaches were followed around their facility and filmed by HBO’s Hard Knocks crew in the days leading up to this big victory that improved the team’s record to 9-3 on the season. I point that out because fans had feared Pittsburgh being a part of Hard Knocks for years. How many years? For at least a decade, or right around the time social media became a huge deal, and fans began using it to worry about things nobody ever really worried about before. Why did fans fear the Steelers being a part of Hard Knocks? The dreaded distraction. That’s right, this film crew was no doubt going to cause the coaches and players to be distracted as they prepared for their next opponent, or in this case of past Hard Knocks editions, the upcoming regular season.

I always found that funny. I mean, how dumb do you think football players are? They can’t prepare for a game with a film crew at the practice field or the facility? Taking a few minutes to interview with one of the producers is going to make a coach or player forget something on Sunday?

That’s just silly. What has always made it sillier is the existence of the constant distraction that everyone–even my mom–has on their person every waking day of their lives in these modern times: I’m talking about a smartphone, aka the death device I see some fellow fans looking at when they’re driving on the highway.

I’ll hand it to my fellow citizens; most of them can actually stare at their smartphones while they drive and do so without crashing their vehicles into other vehicles. So, you mean to tell me that MOST drivers can’t be distracted by looking at a smartphone when they navigate the highways, but a football player can be distracted on Sunday by an interview he did with a film crew the previous Wednesday?

It just never made any sense to me.

Anywho, Steelers fans thought they were safe from Hard Knocks because their team always found a way to make the postseason at least once every other year (I think that used to be the rule), but now we know there are no rules when it comes to the NFL. They have training camp Hard Knocks. In-season Hard Knocks. Postseason Hard Knocks (I think, but even if they don’t, they will). I’m sure there will soon be an NFL Draft Hard Knocks (there may already be one of those), and probably even an OTAs Hard Knocks.

The NFL plays games overseas now. It airs them at 9:30 in the morning. It plays on Fridays. It plays on Wednesdays. The NFL is like Johnny Cash used to be–everywhere, man.

The NFL has become a part of our lives 24/7/365. It’s hard to be a distraction when you’re an omnipresent entity.

Besides Hard Knocks, every team has its own in-house media that follows these players and coaches around daily. Broadcast crews ask players and coaches to meet with them every week to prepare material and talking points for an upcoming game.

That last thing has been going on for a while, actually.

So, now that you’ve seen the Steelers on Hard Knocks, do you still think it’s a distraction? I don’t. In fact, the only thing I was distracted by was Mike Tomlin and how he communicated with his assistants and players.

I simply couldn’t take my eyes off of him.