The Indianapolis Colt’s destruction of the Houston Texans keeps their playoff hopes alive and enters the team into their bye-week on a high note. Each NFL team has one “bye week” during a normal season, and the media is sarcastically suggesting that the Colts are on their second bye week, for their easy previous win. Nevertheless, the first two days of the bye-week consisted of meetings at Grand Park, the Colts training facility.
Head Coach Frank Reich urges his team to enjoy the downtime but stresses the bye-week is an outright vacation. The team is to return fresh, hungry and primed to go 1-0 for the remainder of the football season. The Colts are to be the team to beat.
Previous episodes of HARD KNOCKS IN SEASON and the original HARD KNOCKS lasted at least 44 minutes. Episode five of HARD KNOCKS IN SEASON clocks in one minute shy of the half-hour mark. The lack of gridiron action is missed, yet the episode is quite touching. We see a series of vignettes that included:
- Angela Carter informing her son Kenny Moore, that he is the Colts “Walter Payton Man Of The Year”. Moore will be one of the nominees to win the official award, which is considered the NFL’s most prestigious honor. Since 2017, previous winners who are currently active in the league wear a patch depicting the trophy on their uniforms for the rest of their NFL careers.
- Deforest Buckner takes his family to Disney World in Orlando Florida.
- Zaire Franklin visits his old Middle School and buys chicken and waffles for the students and staff.
- Xavier Rhodes and his wife Brittney pack for a stay in the hospital, expecting that their second child will be introduced to the world during the bye-week.
- Colts owner Jack Irsay and his children share their love for the sport of football. The children state although their lives revolved around football, they had happy childhoods and are in the business for reasons far beyond monetary.
Lastly, episode five shares the message of eradicating the stigmas around mental health. Players and staff wear shirts that bear the words “Vulnerability is a Strength”. The camaraderie between players & staff and brief but effective snapshots of their personal lives never feels redundant. HARD KNOCKS IN SEASON returns December 22, 2021 at 10pm.
