Sources: Cowboys keep Gallup with $62.5M deal
Marcus Spears outlines why the Cowboys might take a step back this season. (1:24)
FRISCO, Texas — The Dallas Cowboys have finalized a five-year deal, $62.5 million deal with wide receiver Michael Gallup, according to sources.
The deal includes a $10 million signing bonus.
Gallup’s return comes a day after the Cowboys agreed to trade wide receiver Amari Cooper to the Cleveland Browns, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter. That deal is pending a physical and can’t be announced until the start of the new league year on Wednesday. Cooper’s $20 million base salary would have been fully guaranteed by March 20, but the deal has instead opened up $16 million in salary-cap room.
Gallup was set to hit the free-agent market next week, but he opted to remain with the team that drafted him in 2018 and rehab with the athletic training staff he trusts after suffering a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in January.
Gallup, who turned 26 on March 4, had surgery in February to repair his ACL, but the expectation is he would be ready for game action in September.
He played in just nine games for the Cowboys in 2021 after suffering a calf strain in Week 1 and the ACL injury in Week 17, catching 35 passes for 445 yards and two touchdowns.
For his career, Gallup has 193 catches for 2,902 yards and 15 touchdowns. In 2019, he had his first 1,000-yard season, finishing with a career-high 66 catches for 1,107 yards and six touchdowns.
The Cowboys drafted Gallup in the third round of the 2018 draft and he immediately became a factor in the offense, developing into the team’s best deep threat and averaging 15 yards per catch. Before 2021, he had missed just two games in his career.
With the Cowboys moving on from Cooper, the Cowboys are banking on CeeDee Lamb and Gallup, once he is healthy, to step into larger roles on the offense.
Lamb caught 79 passes for 1,102 yard and six touchdowns last season and was added to the Pro Bowl. Cooper caught 68 passes for 865 yards and eight touchdowns despite missing two games on the reserve/COVID-19 list.
The Cowboys are expected to lose Cedrick Wilson once free agency begins, but were able to keep Noah Brown on a one-year deal. The Cowboys could look to free agency and the draft for more wide receiver help.