I am certainly not your typical accomplished writer here at The Athletic, which has assembled an unreal staff of talented reporters and columnists who have appeared on many print journalism all-star teams through the years.

I have worked at a major newspaper for a few years, but in reality, I am a sports radio guy who opened my own blogger page a decade back and somehow ended up here, too. And, I am really excited that I am now allowed to call The Athletic my team.

I am proud to be covering the Dallas Cowboys here from now on, as I have for 20 years on the radio in Dallas. During that time, I also started writing about them as I became very interested in the tactical and analytical side of studying their performance.

What makes football fantastic is that it can be enjoyed on many levels. You can watch the ball and enjoy it, but you can also dig deeper to uncover an amazingly simple game surrounded by countless complexities.

That is what I really love. I have always needed to know more about how things work on the field and have attempted to educate myself about the ever-evolving game as well as a radio guy could.

So, years back, I began this journey. Worked my way in with some coaches who would teach me what they look for when watching a play, read the books they told me to read, attended the coaching clinics where I was the only guy there who wasn’t actually a coach, and tried to learn it all. Luckily, I lived in Texas, where you throw a rock in any direction and there is a football coach of some kind. And many of them are thrilled to tell you a lot if you ask nicely. If you were to try to teach yourself the sport as a media guy in his 30s, this would be a good place to start.

Then, I started writing about what I was learning. First, on my own blog. By 2008, I moved my data and analysis to the Dallas Morning News. The information was rather rare and unique back then and certainly not terribly easy to process. There was an audience for it, but it was also a curiosity. But, with each passing year, we were able to make it better. Still pictures were added to explain plays, then moving video became possible. Then, we added moving video of All-22’s once the NFL allowed us to see them (for a nice fee). The analysis moved to D Magazine. Then, Fox Sports Southwest was my home for several seasons before I went back to the Dallas Morning News in 2014 until a few weeks ago.

How did I end up here? Well, it started when I bought a subscription to The Athletic to follow the NHL. My buddies told me I wouldn’t believe the analysis on the site, and one hockey friend told me, “they study hockey like you study the Cowboys.” Basically, he said, they have some of the best sports nerds in the business on their team. I signed up, eager to see if this was true. He was right. I started reading Tyler Dellow and Justin Bourne to see those same Xs and Os breakdowns that explain a complex game in a simple fashion. Then, I see all of my familiar hockey writers like James Mirtle, Craig Custance, and Michael Russo, and I am in heaven every day.

Then, I go see their football team and it is many of my guys from #FootballTwitter, with Ted Nguyen and Sheil Kapadia doing the same All-22 analysis and breakdowns for their teams that I do for the Cowboys.

My wheels started turning. It all made too much sense. I had hit a ceiling at the Morning News as “radio guy who does Xs and Os on our blog.” I get it. Tough to break down a fire-zone blitz in a traditional paper, so this medium was created for this new way of covering football. You can literally get quotes from press conferences anywhere. I want to do what The Athletic already does; I want to provide something that you can only get here.

I joined The Athletic because as a customer it was everything I wanted to read: a mix of analysis and story-telling that is not limited with space or word counts, but also never just writing to fill space. There is a fine mix of analytics and tactical breakdowns for those of us who cannot see the game any other way anymore. Why would we? It is a beautiful chess game. Let’s do more than watch the ball.

The site is also dead-set against some of the things I don’t like: There is no manufactured news, no pointless regurgitating, and definitely no click-bait headlines to trick you into your clicks. No pop-up ads, no auto-play videos, and I bet you won’t get a survey before you can read this.

Now, my biggest task is measuring up to the standard. In many ways, I will be doing what I have always done, trying to learn more about this game every day, trying to pass it along in a way accessible to those people who wish to see the game from a deeper level and still enjoyable for those who know all about football 201 and 301 to follow the progress of the Dallas Cowboys from a self-professed football nerd.

I want to establish a relationship with you in the comments and feedback as much as possible. I want to try to explain whatever doesn’t make sense to a new reader. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I will try to find them as best as I can. We will surely disagree on the future of Dez Bryant or what they should do at pick No. 19 or the eternal legacy of Tony Romo, but that will always come with the price of admission.

Beyond that, I want to give you some meaty substance several times a week, all year round, by simply continuing to ask “why?” This is a team I did not grow up cheering for — come on, I was born in Wisconsin, what did you expect? — but I have been following this team every day since 1998. If I can remember the Chan Gailey introductory press conference after the firing of Barry Switzer from two decades back, then hopefully that allows me a small bit of latitude for an opinion on the topics of the day.

Any fan of this team knows well — there is absolutely no telling what will happen next with Cowboys football. It is never dull around here, for sure. But, I promise to have some substantive opinions and analysis on whatever it is right here at The Athletic Dallas for years to come. I hope you come along for the ride.

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(Top image: Erich Schlegel/USA TODAY Sports)