Michael Gallup & Cowboys WRs: Reason to Pass on DeAndre Hopkins?
Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Gallup is confident that the player who averaged 30.3 receiving yards per game in 14 contests a year ago isn't the new normal for him.
In fact, as he moves further away from the torn left ACL that he suffered in January of 2022, Gallup believes that he's poised to reassert himself in his sixth NFL season.
"It's different. I feel springy again," Gallup told us recently.
And it seems to us that Gallup's successful rehab is among the reasons we feel comfortable in predicting, as we do here, that Dallas will not be issuing a blockbuster bid, complete with fat numbers in years and dollars, for free agent receiver DeAndre Hopkins.
This is not to say that Gallup is superior to Hopkins, but rather, to say that a healthy Gallup, teamed with Dallas' other two top pass-catchers, might be enough to cause Cowboys management to believe the team is well-stocked as is.
A third-round pick out of Colorado State in 2018, Gallup looked like an emerging star in 2019 when he caught 66 passes for 1,107 yards and six touchdowns for the Cowboys. After CeeDee Lamb fell into Dallas' lap in the 2020 NFL Draft, there were more mouths to feed between him and Amari Cooper, which perhaps limited the extent to which Gallup could emerge himself. But the previous glimpses that Gallup had shown were one of the reasons the Cowboys were willing to move on from Cooper after the 2021 season, confident they still had two star receivers.
The problem with that strategy is that Gallup -- less than a year removed from tearing his ACL -- never looked like himself last year. He had 39 catches for 424 yards, as the Cowboys became entirely too reliant on Lamb.
But simply because you are cleared to return after tearing your ACL doesn't mean you are back to 100 percent in terms of speed or agility. It checks out that Gallup is feeling significantly better now than he did last summer. And it's why he thinks the version of himself that had 1,950 receiving yards between 2019 and 2020 is set to re-emerge.
"I'm very confident I'll be that guy, for sure," Gallup said. "Very confident. It just feels different. It's kind of like in the air. I ain't going to lie to you. I'm smiling every time I walk in that facility."
If Gallup is "that guy" again in 2023, the Cowboys will have one of the more potent offenses in the NFL. In addition to Lamb and Gallup, the Cowboys acquired veteran wide receiver Brandin Cooks via trade in March, adding a weapon for Dak Prescott that has over 8,600 career receiving yards on his resume. And maybe that means the Cowboys employ a trio of "that guys'' - lessening the likelihood of "that other guy.''
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