Welcome a new front-page writer to BTB!

Ed Note: We aren’t done making the BTB roster the best around. So this offseason, we’ve added another writer to the front page. His name is David Howman, so give him a huge BTB welcome! — Dave

Hello there!

My name is David Howman and this is the first thing I’ve written for Blogging The Boys. I was born and raised in Arizona, but I’ve been a die-hard Dallas Cowboys fan since I first got into football. I’ll never forget the day it happened: October 23, 2006. I was just starting to get into football as a fan, and on this particular day I was watching the Cowboys-Giants Monday Night Football game. I had no allegiances to any team, and knew very little at the time.

But when Drew Bledsoe got pulled and replaced by Tony Romo in the second half, I remember Mike Tirico and Tony Kornheiser talking about how he was undrafted and had never played a real lick of football in his life. I obviously started rooting for him, as I like the underdog. And he did a pretty good job, given the circumstances! He threw three picks, one of them was returned for a touchdown, but he also threw a touchdown, ran in for two, and then had a 53-yard touchdown to some guy named Patrick Crayton. There was also this guy named DeMarcus Ware on defense who was pretty fun to watch, and his career stoked my interest in learning defensive concepts later on. But in that moment, even though Dallas lost, I was hooked on the star. By the end of the 2006 season, I was such a fan that I joined every other fan in collectively sobbing when Romo fell short at the goal line in Seattle on that botched hold.

Ever since then, I’ve become more invested in America’s Team, learning their history and their lineups and schemes. Over time, I started writing about the Cowboys because keeping it all in my head was too much, and my passion for sports writing took off. There was a point in time where I would regularly spend my free time on the Cowboys’ website, sifting through news articles for any new nugget of information I could find, and this led to me finding other Cowboys news sites, most notably BTB. I spent a few years writing about the Cowboys, as well as covering college sports at my alma mater Arizona State, with both the Armchair All Americans and The Ticket, but now I am overjoyed to begin my time here, where the focus is entirely on the star, as it should always be.

My main approach to writing has always been analysis and evaluation. I love to watch game tape and break down the X’s and O’s of a player or a particular scheme, and then evaluate how various players perform in situations, identifying strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately drawing judgments from that analysis. During the offseason, I like to speculate on how the team might alter their approaches to the game based on coaching and personnel changes, and after each game, I typically do a breakdown of what was good and what was bad, going as in depth on that evaluation as I can. And the NFL Draft process is practically an addiction for me, as I get a kick out of looking at all the incoming college players and seeing what their different skills, fits, and potential are. I cannot wait to bring all of this, and more, to BTB.

How ‘bout them Cowboys!