Watching Football: Discovering the Game Within the Game

Daryl Johnston's name and voice are known to millions of television viewers who hear his insightful commentary on NFL telecasts each week during the football season. But football fans first learned to love him years ago, when "Moose" was a crowd favorite on the Dallas Cowboys' Super Bowl championship teams of the 1990s.

A bruising fullback with an unyielding work ethic, Johnston enjoyed the respect of teammates and fans in Dallas almost from the moment he joined the club as a second-round draft pick out of Syracuse in 1989. He earned national recognition in 1993, when he became the first blocking fullback selected to represent the NFC in the annual Pro Bowl game.

Moose's blocking helped the Cowboys win three Super Bowls in four years from 1992 to 1995, and helped pave the way for Dallas running back Emmitt Smith to ascend to the top of the NFL's all-time rushing charts.

Johnston was a thinking man's football player--an athlete determined to get the most out of his abilities by outsmarting his opponent as well as outhitting him. And when he retired from football following the 1999 season, he brought that same competitive edge to his role as a television analyst, first for CBS in 2000, then for Fox Sports since 2001. In 2004, he was teamed with veteran Dick Stockton and former NFL defensive star Tony Siragusa on one of Fox's most popular announcing crews.

Daryl knows that spectators who just follow the football are missing much of the game. We can all see the quarterback hand the ball to the running back, and the linebacker make the tackle. But there are 22 guys in motion on every play. In Watching Football, Moose draws upon his playing experience and years of expert analysis on television to bring the entire field into focus. So the next time you tune in an NFL or college game on television, you'll know what's coming--almost before the players do!