Welcome to Go Long.
Your home for longform journalism in pro football.
Our goal? Deliver a story worth your valuable time.
Here’s our reintroduction post to the 2024 NFL Season, icymi…
Whenever I sit down with a player for a profile here at Go Long, you know what I always love most? Romeo Doubs… to Yannick Ngakoue…. to Wyatt Teller… to David Long Jr. … to Damar Hamlin — close to 100 percent of the players we’ve met at Go Long — tuck their phone away. It may buzz. And buzz. And ring. They don’t answer. Seeing a 25-year-old completely engaged at the dinner table is always encouraging for mankind.
It’s also a striking departure from the sad scene we all see play out at our local coffee shop or youth soccer practice: humans scrolling hours of their lives away. Algorithms, AI and corporations all do their best to dumb down the populace because that makes us easier to control and manipulate.
But exactly as players are dying to hit pause on their chaotic lives to share their odyssey — if I’ve learned anything into Season No. 5 at Go Long — it’s that far, far more people out there want to take their brains back. The majority of us holding phones do not want to live in a dystopia, fattening up on 280-character tweets or hearting an infinite number of Instagram posts. Upon launching this longform site in November 2020 after a decade at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Buffalo News and Bleacher Report, I wasn’t sure if Go Long was “niche-y” enough to gain momentum in the Substack world. Most all independent-media sites zero in on one team.
Turns out, we do have a vibrant audience of our own:
Fans who harbor an intense curiosity to learn more about the game they love.
Fans who want to go deeper.
To the subscribers determined to read, to learn, to join a community of football fans around the world, we write for you. You’ve made the calculation in your mind that 25 minutes of free time are best spent with us at GoLongTD.com, and that’s something I sincerely cherish. The goal — always — is to deliver NFL storytelling and analysis worth your valuable time.
This is the most popular sport in America, and it’s not close. You’re investing $60 to park, $150 for a ticket, $18 for a beer and, give or take, 97.8 percent your sanity to this sport. A sport, let’s face it, that’s more of a religion in America. You deserve real, raw storytelling and reporting. Not pandering. Not social-media slop.
There’s always palace intrigue that demands digging into corners of the league others avoid. We’ll spend weeks working on those team deep dives.
There’s always a player with a riveting story to share. They don’t want to be swallowed by an amoeba of cameras at their locker. A lengthy conversation is a refreshing departure for all parties involved… consumers of the NFL, first and foremost.
In 2023, we explored plenty. A quick sampling:
How C.J. Stroud took the NFL by storm, and Bryce Young did not.
Why Orlando Brown Jr., son of “Zeus,” was born for the storm.
Now, it’s on to 2024.
To our returning subscribers, it’s a pleasure to have you back.
To new readers, welcome. We’d love to have you as a paid subscriber.
Here’s what you can expect.
Our plan.
Friday Feature. We always pour our most reporting, writing and travel into this piece that goes live every Friday AM. Go Long relentlessly hunts for stories that peel back the curtain on this sport. Your investment is put directly back into the company.
“How the NFL Works” (Podcast and Q&A) We’ll take you beyond the press conference to bring the good, bad and ugly of this league to light with this new feature for paid subscribers. The show will drill down a specific angle through the eyes of a player/coach/scout.
Morning After Column. Each Monday AM, we’ll have a lengthy column recapping everything from Sunday. This is something we’ve had since Day 1, but expect more from our columnized recap in ‘24.
“Ty & Bob Pod.” Once again, I’m joined by Pro Football Hall of Famer Bob McGinn, my former Journal Sentinel cohort. Every single week, we’ll dissect the NFC North (and more, of course) for roughly two hours. You won’t want to miss McGinn’s knifing analysis. The North promises to be a brawl.
Mailbag! Time to make this a regular staple. Submit questions/thoughts any time to golongtd@gmail.com, and I’ll answer them every other week.
Gameday Chat. Hang out with fellow members from around the world every single Sunday inside the chat.
Happy Hours. Once per month, we’ll welcome on a former player for you to hang out with on Zoom. Warren Moon. Richie Incognito. LeRoy Butler. Ryan Leaf. We’ve had a little bit of everything over the years.
NFL Draft Series. For 40 years, McGinn has delivered an unparalleled draft series to readers. He’ll bring the 41st edition to Go Long next spring. And throughout the course of the season, expect more “McGinn Files” columns looking back at how scouts viewed players today — with a modern twist.
Live hangouts. Always keep an eye out. We love hanging out in person here in Western New York.
Go VIP!
If you REALLY want to blow a gust of wind into the pirate sails, may we recommend a VIP subscription? Upgrade to our top tier and you’ll get even more:
Go Long sweatshirt. Hoodie or crew.
Signed copy of “The Blood and Guts: How Tight Ends Save Football.”
A complementary annual subscription for a friend.
Virtual press pass. Have a specific question for a player? Let me know.
Thanks, everyone.
There are always three ways to access everything at Go Long.
Your email inbox.
Inside the (excellent) Substack app:
Testimonials
“If anyone would ever want to read a long-form story on me — they wouldn’t — I would want Tyler to write it. No one is better at going in-depth on an issue, a subject, or a controversy than Ty Dunne. And his website is a perfect example of that. His dedication to telling the readers just a little bit more shines through brightly. A great website to bookmark if you want to know everything about the best stories in the NFL.” — Ian Rapoport, NFL Network Insider
“I started covering the NFL in 1984, when the football-media world was about one-twentieth of what it is now. (When it was a sane world, actually.) Today, there are free sites, pay sites. There's a network devoted to pumping the NFL's tires. ESPN has an NFL show every day, even when teams are shut down in the summer. The Sunday shows are out of control. You've got to be judicious in your NFL media consumption or you'll go stark raving mad. The reason Go Long is a regular part of my football education is because he's smart, his stories are smart and different, his involvement with readers/experiencers is perfect for this day and age ... and one more thing. I like people in this business who love their jobs. Tyler Dunne loves writing about this game and talking about this game. It seeps into everything he does. All of that contributes to me clicking on his stuff consistently. I'm grateful for it.” — Peter King, NBC Sports
“I’ve been a subscriber since day one and always will be because I enjoy everything Tyler Dunne writes. He is one of America’s premier NFL feature writers, and his opinions and perspectives on the game are captivating.” — Dan Pompei, The Athletic
“Tyler Dunne is the best of what you'd want in a football writer. He is grounded in the game's past and aware of its future. He is equally gifted as a crafter of prose, an analyst and a columnist, with the even-handedness of a true 30-year veteran. I start my day with Go Long because I know Tyler will have something worth my time, and he always delivers.” — Conor Orr, Sports Illustrated
“Go Long has my favorite NFL articles and interviews to read. Players and coaches seem to genuinely open up to Tyler — allowing him an access and an insight that I really don’t see anywhere else. This is where I go for depth and insight. Not clickbait.” — Tom Pelphrey, actor, “Ozark,” “Love and Death,” “American Murderer”
“I can't overstate how much I love Go Long and Ty's work, as both a football fan and as a radio host constantly looking for insightful, smart and unique insights on the game. His work is so good it can seem prescient, and it's rare to find someone schooled in the Xs and Os at the level of a football coach, a reporter plugged in enough to routinely be eating ribs or taking memory-lane tours with current NFL stars, and a writer so talented 5,000 words of perspective and surprising new information reads like its 500. The guy is a major talent, and Go Long is a must-read for any football fan.” — Bill Reiter, CBS Sports Radio
Catch up with a handful of features below…
