Ex-Denver Post Writer on In-Season Switch From Broncos to Buffalo Bills

The departure of NHL writer Mike Chambers shortly before the world-champion Colorado Avalanche started the regular season wasn't the only recent high-profile exit from the sports staff of the Denver Post. Broncos beat writer Ryan O'Halloran left the paper after the second week of what has been a very disappointing season to begin covering one of the best teams in the National Football League, the Buffalo Bills, as well as the pro-hockey franchise Buffalo Sabres, for the Buffalo News.

The timeline of O'Halloran's Twitter account memorializes the abruptness of the change: Broncos material dominated his posts until shortly after Denver eked out a victory against the woeful Houston Texans on September 18. That evening, he tweeted a photo of Mile High Stadium from a distance along with the line "And that’s a wrap" — and since then, almost everything that's followed has been Buffalo-centric.

But Post sports editor Scott Monserud had more of a heads-up about O'Halloran's switch. "He accepted the job in August and graciously agreed to stay with us to finish work on our pre-season Broncos magazine and work the first two weeks of the season while we looked for his replacement," he says.

And that replacement is former USA Today Broncos specialist Parker Gabriel. "We are thrilled to have Parker Gabriel with us, taking over as our lede Broncos reporter," Monserud adds.

For O'Halloran, the move was more about work-life balance than a desire to stop writing about the Broncos' underperformances.

"I had been on the every-day, all-hours NFL beat since 2005, including the last four-plus years covering the Broncos for the Post," he says via email, "and this opportunity represented equal parts a new challenge (longer stories and regular columns) and a new pace (instead of having 8-12 bylines a week at the Post during the season, I have 3-4 in Buffalo). Had this job been to be the Bills’ beat writer, I would have not been interested."

O'Halloran confirms that his jump to Buffalo was in the works mid-summer; he started at the News on September 26.

Was the opportunity to cover the Bills, the betting favorite to represent the AFC in the 2023 Super Bowl (the squad defeated the Kansas City Chiefs at home yesterday, October 16, in one of the highest-profile NFL contests of the campaign to date), too good to pass up?

“That the Bills are one of the NFL’s best teams is a bonus," he says. "But even if the team was in a rebuilding phase and without an owner and looking for a franchise quarterback, I would have pursued this opportunity."

He acknowledges that going from chronicling one team to tracking another after the season had already gotten underway was "not ideal, but back in 2012, I started in Jacksonville at the Florida Times-Union on Labor Day and was able to quickly gain traction. It would have been a more difficult transition in Buffalo had my responsibilities been that of a beat writer."

While watching the Bills might be less painful than eyeballing the Broncos this season, hockey is a different matter. O'Halloran also had an opportunity to write about the Avalanche for the Post, and while the squad looked as formidable as ever in its 4-1 season-opening victory against the Chicago Blackhawks on October 12, the Sabres, his new concern, last made the playoffs in 2011.

Still, O'Halloran's excited about the new gig, if a bit wistful about leaving Colorado.

"I loved living in the Denver area and was grateful for the reader response for how I pursued the Broncos’ beat, emphasizing X-and-O analysis and features. I appreciated the commitment made by the Post to cover two Super Bowls pre-pandemic and the other off-season events like the Combine and League Meeting. And one of my career highlights was covering the Avalanche’s Stanley Cup Final series against Tampa Bay," he says.

Even so, "Getting off the hamster wheel of NFL beat-writing for the kind of job where I can write longer stories on the NFL and NHL and also Bills columns was too good to pass up," he concludes.

And not having to witness the terrible things likely to happen to the Broncos tonight, October 17, when they tempt prime-time national humiliation again in a Monday Night Football matchup against the Los Angeles Chargers, is just a bonus.