Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Michael Gallup is expected to start the year on the active roster, which is great news for his fantasy football outlook. The former third-round pick tore his ACL late in the 2021 season, and most believed he wouldn’t be ready for the start of the year. However, Gallup is reportedly ahead of schedule, but what does that mean for fantasy owners?
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2022 Fantasy Football Outlook: Michael Gallup
Michael Gallup When Healthy
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that Michael Gallup is completely healthy and stays that way for the entire season. Gallup hasn’t done all that much for fantasy in the past few seasons, finishing as the WR77 in nine games last year and the WR38 in 16 games in 2020. However, there are clear reasons for Gallup’s relative lack of production over the past two seasons, and most of it has to do with injuries.
Gallup himself missed a sizable portion of 2021, and his quarterback missed the vast majority of the 2020 season. Needless to say, it’s hard to produce in these scenarios, especially with elite target competition. In each of the past two seasons, Gallup had to battle Amari Cooper and CeeDee Lamb for targets. However, now that Cooper is a Brown, Gallup should be the second-best receiver on Dak Prescott’s Cowboys.
The last time we saw Gallup in this type of role was in the 2019 season. Playing in just 14 games, Gallup still found a way to finish the year as the WR22 overall while recording 21.7% target share and a 30.3% air yard share. These numbers imply that Gallup’s success was not a fluke, and considering that 2019 was only his second year in the league, it’s entirely possible that we have yet to see the best of the Colorado State product.
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Michael Gallup’s Injury
If Gallup had a clean bill of health going into the season, then he’d probably project in the WR18-24 range. However, Gallup’s injury cannot be ignored. While it appears as though he’ll be on the active roster in Week 1, there is a clear difference between being healthy enough to play and being at full strength.
ACL recoveries have come a long way in the past decade or so, but it is still a signficant injury. Generally speaking, players need nine months before they’re completely back on their feet, and another month after that before they’re back to performing like their old selves. It goes without saying that there are exceptions to the rule, but that is the general timeframe.
Gallup tore his ACL on January 2nd, just over eight months before the 2022 Cowboys begin their season against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. If Gallup plays, he probably won’t give you anything more than replacement-level production for the first month of the season. However, after about four games to knock off the rust, Gallup should be able to produce at a WR2 level.
As of this posting, it’s impossible to say where Michael Gallup will go in a typical fantasy football draft. News of his expected health just broke today, and that will obviously have an impact on his draft position. With all that being said, he is a fine pick in the eighth round or later. While you’ll need to stash him for a bit, the late-season production should be enough to justify a mid- to late-round selection for a talented player.
