Look, reality television as we know it might be the spawn of some unholy matrimony between Satan and the Kardashians, but only because it’s not real. It’s highly stylised and deliberately filmed and edited in a way that removes any hint of revelation from the final product. Plus it’s so infuriatingly vacuous, glorifying the kind of vampirific celebrity worship that might just be tearing the last collective strands of intelligence left in our society out by the hair-extensions. And it’s boring.

But at its conceptual core, reality TV is really just honesty on film. It’s fly on the wall documentation. Some do it better than others.

At the top of the list is HBO’s ‘Hard Knocks’ series (NFL Films have a large input too). For sports fans, this is what every insider doco you’ve ever seen was meant to be. Each year they send a full crew to a selected NFL team to follow, film and explore their pre-season in all of its peaks and valleys. You see coaches speaking at team meetings, you see players working hard in the gym, doing the business on the paddock, chilling in hotels, at functions, in their spare time. It’s a fascinating insight into a world so often talked about but rarely ever witnessed.

Last year/season we got the inside scoop on the Atlanta Falcons as their tried to toughen up their team after a disastrous 2013 season that saw them end a three-year playoff streak. As it turns out, the process worked… but not well enough. They went from a 4 win team to a 6 win team.

It’s not about results, though. That all comes long after this show finishes for the year. ‘Hard Knocks’ is about witnessing the sound and the fury of the NFL from closer than the stands. Being there for the formative moments in a season that could yet be anything. Staring agape as feats of athletic impossibility happen before your eyes. Lapping up the moments of humanity between them. That’s probably the secret charm of ‘Hard Knocks’, the chance to see premier athletes in regular situations. Cracking jokes, hanging with family, chatting on the sideline. This is what reality television is meant to be.

The impending 2015 NFL season sees the Houston Texans assume the ‘Hard Knocks’ spotlight. They’re a team that’s been up and down over the last decade. At a time they were good enough for Matt Schaub to lead them to the divisional round of the playoffs two years in a row (2011-2012) but as head coach Bill O’Brien says early on in episode one, the franchise still has an overall losing record of 88–120. The 2013 season started alright for them with a couple of wins but then it all went about as far wrong as it was possible to go. Schaub became a walking interception, star running back Arian Foster was only able to play 8 games as injury ended his season and coach Gary Kubiak missed time after collapsing on the sideline during a narrow loss to Indianapolis, before being sacked at the end of the season. The only real positive was that they ended up with the number one draft pick, selecting Jadaveon Clowney.

2014 was much better but they still only wrangled a 9-7 record, not enough for a playoff return. Foster was back to his best but Clowney tore his meniscus in his first game and would only sparingly play four times in his rookie season. Quarterback issues still held them back even after Schaub was offloaded.

What we have now, for the show, is not quite a fascinating team but certainly an interesting one. On one hand, you have the awful battle for starting quarterback between Brian Hoyer and Ryan Mallett, featured in the first episode as they tried to one-up each other with increasingly dumb plays, as well as having to play in cut-off R**skins jerseys when their own didn’t arrive with the rest of the team’s kit. But on the other hand you have supremely talented folks like DeAndre Hopkins and Brian Cushing. Plus some guy called Watt.

J.J. Watt is one of the most marketable guys in the NFL. Already good enough to call an all-time great at the age of 26, in four seasons in the NFL Watt has twice won Defensive Player of the Year, made the Pro Bowl three times, led the league in sacks once (he’s the only man in history with multiple seasons with 20+ sacks) and was runner up in the MVP race last time despite playing as a defensive end. Plus he’s a nice bloke with a good attitude.

Watt gets plenty of screen time, as you’d imagine. His workouts are a thing of legend and you almost wonder if getting a high-def camera in to see him flipping a 450kg tire was half the reason they chose the Texans in the first place. NFL Films are well established at being brilliant at getting those killer super slo-mo sprinting shots and the surround sound crunches of scrimmage line collisions. But that stuff isn’t the same without the star power to drive it. The Texans are short on stars, Watt makes up for almost all of it.

Seriously, he gets so many moments. There’s an extended sequence in the first ep of him training by himself long after everyone else has left, then hanging around to sign autographs afterwards.

The next biggest hero on the team is Arian Foster. Let’s just say he doesn’t get the same amount of hype, and for legit reasons. There’s some stuff of him talking up his brother as his personal trainer (“he knows my body better than anyone” sorta stuff)… only for him to go down injured early in camp. Which if you’ve got ESPN bookmarked in your browser, you knew was coming. What was more unexpected was the cheeky way they edited together a bunch of promising stuff about rookie Reshard Cliett only for him to then tear his ACL. That’s deliberate framing.

‘Hard Knocks’ always likes to focus on the rookies. It’s a clever way to bring us viewers into this uncharted territory, by letting us see it through the eyes and recollections of those who are also experiencing this for the first time (but because of immense skill and talent, not because they know how to use a TV/the internet). Kevin Johnson is their top pick, a cornerback that looks pretty handy and is hoped will tighten up a secondary that gave up the twelfth most passing yards despite keeping opposing QBs to the fourth lowest completion rate last season. We even get to meet Johnson’s whole family – his sister is a cheerleader for the Baltimore Ravens – let’s just hope the dude doesn’t break his leg in their next pre-season game.

Tragedies, disappointments and the odd masterclass aside, ‘Hark Knocks’ isn’t all glorified sports documentary. The best moments are the quiet ones, as is the case with most HBO prestige shows. Rookies nervously joking to the cameras. Christian Covington’s fantasy novel collection. Coaches chatting away in video sessions. Team meetings. Vince Wilfork at the circus playing catch with an elephant. Vince Wilfork playing basketball with his extended family. Vince Wilfork telling dirty jokes to the rooks. Crooked lines on the practice field they’re about to play the R**skins on.

The show goes for the odd voice over, but it’s always unobtrusive and the people behind it realise that more often than not, high definition image say more than words ever could. We don’t need to know anything about Hopkins’ beef with Washington CB DeAngelo Hall, that was enough fun all on its own without comment. Same goes for the brawl that erupted later on.

It’s that fly on the wall feel that makes ‘Hard Knocks’ feel like such essential viewing every year. Even when you see the announcement that once again your team has missed the cut in favour of the Cincinnati Bengals or the Atlanta Hawks or the bloody Houston Texans. Especially in a time where athletes and franchises tend to be more guarded than ever, personalities more shielded and everything you do get feels like a watered down handout. Not here though.

Which is not to say that ‘Hard Knocks’ is all raw meat and dirty laundry. No team is letting cameras into their headquarters if they’re only gonna make them bad. All the footage that we see has been through any number of stages of post-production. It’s been edited in a way that presents the way the producers want it to be seen, like all reality TV. Except that ‘Hard Knocks’ is still real. As real as it’s ever gonna get. No amount of manufactured drama can match the devastation of a coach finding out that his starting running back has “tweaked his groin”, or the majesty of DeAndre Hopkins taking an incredible one-handed catch as he falls backwards on the run.