Former Cowboys Star Receiver Signs With NFC Rival

The Dallas Cowboys have had a rough offseason so far. Current and former players are beefing publicly, while the signings they've made have brought little excitement to fans expecting a bounce-back season.

To make matters worse, one of their former players, wide receiver Michael Gallup, came out of retirement to sign with the Washington Commanders.

Gallup was drafted with the 81st pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, but shows glimpses of potential with the team.

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Gallup's best season came in the second year of his career, where he put up 66 receptions on 113 targets for 1,107 yards in just 14 games.

His career from there went on the downswing, eventually leading to him retiring in 2024 despite being just 28 years old.

Now the receiver joins one of the top teams in the NFL to help solidify an improving receiving core, to the dismay of Cowboys fans.

With the hole the Cowboys currently have a receiver beyond CeeDee Lamb, Gallup may have helped them despite sitting out for a season.

The Commanders are way ahead of the Cowboys as a roster at this point, so this signing just adds insult to injury.

After losing in the NFC championship last year to the eventual champion and fellow division rival Philadelphia Eagles and the Cowboys missed out on the playoffs after finishing 7-10, the two teams seem to be heading in opposite directions.

The Commanders have now added Gallup and trade acquisition Deebo Samuel to a receiving core that already had Terry McLaurin as the clear number one.

The team also added an elite left tackle via trade in Laremy Tunsil from the Houston Texans.

The main acquisitions the Cowboys have had this offseason is resigning some players, and signing running backs Miles Sanders and Javonte Williams.

Nobody they've signed will really move the needle for them in terms of catching the Commanders and Eagles in the NFC East.

The Cowboys will likely look to the NFL draft to find a wide receiver to find the production out of their secondary receivers that Gallup once gave them.

The top options seem to be Tetairoa McMillan out of Arizona and Matthew Golden out of Texas. The team could also find a solid contributor later in the draft, as they did with Gallup.

While this move doesn't mean a whole lot on paper, the Commanders signing Michael Gallup, a former Dallas Cowboy, is a clear representation of the direction the two franchises are going in.

Gallup retired after playing for the Cowboys for six seasons, then unretired to sign with their division rival.

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