"The Blood and Guts" is coming...

I wrote a book, and can't wait for you to check it out. Everything we love about football can be learned through the Great American Tight End. "The Blood and Guts" drops October 18.

Good morning, readers!

Hope everyone is doing fantastic. Thrilled to share the news with you all here first at Go Long that I’ll have my first book dropping on October 18 and, man, was this fun. It’s called The Blood and Guts: How Tight Ends Save Football and explores why everything we love about football can be appreciated through one glorious position: the tight end.  

I’ve spent this past year traveling around the country, hanging out with the greats, to learn how they’re all wired. Each conversation was more illuminating than I could’ve imagined, from Mike Ditka down at his golf course in Florida to Tony Gonzalez detailing how he evolved the position to Jackie Smith opening up in St. Louis to — why not? — throwing a few drinks back with Jeremy Shockey in Miami.

Rob Gronkowski. Jimmy Graham. Ben Coates. Dallas Clark. Ozzie Newsome. Everyone had hours upon hours of stories to share that were a mix of wildly entertaining, painful, hilarious and chilling. Over these last 60-plus years, a select group of tight ends became uniquely qualified to ensure football is forever football. Each chapter is a deep dive on one of these individuals preserving America’s game.

This is a football book but the more I chatted with these tight ends, the more it became clear that the tight end position tells us a heck of a lot about life.

Now, the fun part for our readers.

Through the months leading up to the release of Blood and Guts, I’ll be incorporating Go Long in a major way. We’ll bring on tight ends past and present to hang out with you on virtual Happy Hours. I’ll have more profiles, Q&As and columns to share from a year’s worth of interviews. We’ll examine everything we possibly can when it comes to this position.

If you’d like to pre-order Blood and Guts, it’s posted wherever you order your books with a few links below.

Thank you everyone for your incredible support.

(Also, Ditka says hello and that he’s doing great.)

Amazon

Target

Barnes and Noble