4:25pm: Unsurprisingly for a player making an NFL comeback, Gallup will sign with the Commanders on a one-year veteran minimum contract worth up to $1.335MM, per Nicki Jhabvala of The Washington Post. With six accrued seasons, his base salary will be $1.17MM, indicating that the deal includes $165k in incentives, though full contract details have not yet been reported.
12:38pm: Add another ex-Cowboy to Dan Quinn‘s Commanders roster. After making a visit to Washington early in free agency, Michael Gallup signed with the Commanders on Thursday.
Gallup visited the Commanders last week and scheduled a Seahawks meeting as well, KPRC2’s Aaron Wilson tweets. Gallup will make his comeback attempt for a team rostering a few former Cowboys. Noah Brown is among them, as the ex-Dallas wideout re-signed with Washington last week.
The Commanders’ receiver room is becoming crowded. Beyond the two former Cowboy cogs, the team traded for Deebo Samuel and re-signed K.J. Osborn. Third-round pick Luke McCaffrey is going into his second season. Gallup could add an interesting piece to the Commanders’ Terry McLaurin support stable, but he had trended downward before a 2024 retirement.
Signing with the Raiders after becoming a Cowboys cap casualty, Gallup did not end up playing in Las Vegas. He instead stepped away from the game before training camp. While this did give Gallup a year to rest up — well after an ACL tear came to define his career — his recent exit may provide an uphill battle regarding a spot on Washington’s 53-man roster. But Gallup has shown a gear Brown and the other batch of tertiary options in Washington have not.
Gallup posted an 1,107-yard season with the Cowboys, moving into four-digit territory (his only such season) in 2019. This came before the Cowboys drafted CeeDee Lamb. Still, Lamb’s arrival did not diminish Gallup’s role too much. Despite Dak Prescott going down early in the 2020 season, Gallup totaled 59 receptions for 843 yards and five touchdowns. These two seasons enticed Dallas to re-sign Gallup on a five-year, $57.25MM deal in 2022. Dallas re-signed Gallup rather than keep Amari Cooper for a third season; that became the wrong decision, as the former third-round pick could not live up to his midlevel WR deal.
A December 2021 ACL tear sidetracked Gallup, who missed eight games that year due to multiple injuries. Although Gallup returned in Week 4 of the 2022 season, he has not flashed the same form since the setback. After catching 39 passes for 424 yards and four TDs in 2022, the 6-foot-1 wideout totaled just 418 yards and two scores in 2023. This prompted the Cowboys to move on, as big-ticket Lamb and Prescott paydays loomed. Gallup will look to recapture some of his pre-injury form, and he is running out of chances.
Samuel will be in position as Washington’s No. 2 receiver next season, leaving McCaffrey, Osborn and the ex-Cowboys to vie for auxiliary roles. Gallup brings success in the past and impressed the Commanders at last week’s visit in order for the NFC runner-up to circle back and greenlight a comeback opportunity.
Whoa
I’m assuming that this is another 1 year deal. It’s wild how many 1 year deals they have signed this year.
At one time the Redskins and Cowboys had the best rivalry going in the NFL. I wonder if all the signings of former Dallas players by Washington is an attempt to wind up Jerry Jones just a bit 🙂
I was thinking the same thing…it’s got to be painful for Jerrah to see the Redskins/Commanders have success at the Cowboys expense…Quinn, Brown and now Gallup and Washington is trending up and the Cowboys are heading south faster and faster with a QB that will never get them to the NFC Championship, A WR that, while paid, is stuck on a team going the wrong way and a great defensive player that Jones just won’t get a deal done with when the market was less than it is now.
Washington will be fun to watch this season along with the Eagles while the Cowboys and Giants will be fun to watch continue to fail.
Only one problem: Gallup can barely catch the ball. He’s another flashy circus-catcher like Dyami Brown with a very low catch ratio. Career catch percentage 55%!
Gallup is a natural 4th wide receiver. When you just have to add another speedster out there, and the team can’t afford another $15 million option with a 65% catch percentage.
He was actually pretty good before the injury.
Some people think Dyami Brown is good too.
Catch percentages can be deceiving. One WR might only have a 55% rate but be very dangerous after the reception is made while another guy might have the 65% rate but rarely tack on additional yards after the catch.