Report: Field Gulls to lose another contributor in free agency

In March of 2016 former Field Gulls Editor In Chief Danny Kelly put out a call for writers in order to add additional names and talent to the roster of site contributors. Following that call, several members of the community stepped into a variety of different roles as contributors, including John P. Gilbert, Alistair Corp, and in a largely unnoticed move Brendan O’Leary took over as the “Links Guy” who provided the daily post of consolidated links.

Once known as Coffee & Cigarettes, then Century Links and now Pre-Snap Reads, in the five years since O’Leary took over that role he has quietly, and largely without complaint provided readers of Field Gulls a significant amount of content with which they could begin their day. However, as with most things in life, all good things must come to an end, and as those who read his intro to Pre-Snap Reads Friday morning know, Sunday will be his last day as a contributor.

He, of course, announced his departure in daily links post, but quite frankly his departure deserves more than to be just the prologue of Coffee & Cigarettes in one of his final works. The number of morning posts he has put together over the years - approaching 2,000 - and the consistency and reliability of his work are mind boggling. To put things into perspective, when he took over the Marshawn Lynch will he retire or won’t he retire saga following the 2015 season was still ongoing and the following players have started at least one game at running back for the Seattle Seahawks in the time since:

• Christine Michael,
• Thomas Rawls,
• C.J. Prosise,
• Alex Collins,
• Tre Madden,
• Eddie Lacy,
• Mike Davis,
• Chris Carson,
• Travis Homer,
• DeeJay Dallas and
• Carlos Hyde.

Simply think back to the 2015 playoff loss to the Carolina Panthers, the game in which the Hawks allowed Carolina to jump out to a 31-0 first half lead before mounting a furious second half comeback that fell just short. That was the final game the Seahawks played prior to Brendan joining the staff of Field Gulls, and save for an extremely limited number of exceptions, he has taken the time to put together the morning post for the site every single day since. It is a herculean effort to say the least, and I’m sure it turned out to be far more than he ever anticipated when he volunteered nearly five years ago.

However, rather than drone on about how Brendan has been quietly and largely thanklessly putting together a morning post since before the Seahawks drafted guys like Germain Ifedi, Kenny Lawler and Zac Brooks, I’d like to take a moment out of this Friday to say a huge thank you to Brendan for everything he has done for the site. So, without wasting anymore time: