Dallas Cowboys: Why it would be crazy to re-sign Michael Gallup right now

Michael Gallup is a budding star, set up perfectly for a career season in 2021. As we’ve discussed before, re-signing players BEFORE their breakout season is a good way to maximize value on your roster. But even if he is in line for a great 2021 season, the Dallas Cowboys should think twice about re-signing the three-year veteran receiver.

Roster building is equal parts talent evaluation and budgeting. I mean, anyone can identify top-end talent, but signing that talent only makes sense if it’s at the right price, right?

As things stand now, the Dallas Cowboys should wait to re-sign Michael Gallup to a new deal.

It’s unknown exactly what Michael Gallup would fetch on the open market. The cost of signing an elite receiver nowadays is high, but latter tiered WRs are all over the board. College football is producing truckloads of talented and polished WRs seemingly every year, and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

As such, the value for non-elite pass-catchers is plummeting. If you have a top-10 guy, by all means you keep him. But the tier below that is fairly replaceable so unless you absolutely need to retain your top pass-catcher, you can probably replace the guy with a veteran free agent or draft pick at a fraction of the cost.

But this isn’t just about Gallup’s variable value, it’s about the construction of the Dallas Cowboys roster and their priorities. Dallas is currently rich in pass-catching talent. They have a top-10 WR in Amari Cooper already under contract long-term. Additionally, they have a guy we expect to be top-5 in the near-term future, under contract for the next four seasons.

Dallas doesn’t NEED to break the bank on a WR3, even if he’s a highly talented budding star. The diminishing returns alone makes his value-added less here in Dallas than what his value-added would be elsewhere.

Looking to 2022, we can see Amari becomes cuttable. Such a move would save Dallas roughly $20M and no one expects Gallup to get into that $20/season range. So Dallas could theoretically save money by swapping the two players next year. But there’s a reason for the price difference – Gallup isn’t in Cooper’s weight class.

For as much as we expect Gallup to progress, it’s unlikely he’ll ever approach Coopers level as a receiver. If both players have career seasons (something we expect), we’d much rather keep Cooper than Gallup because the ceiling is so much higher. I’ll remind you, Cooper is still just 27-years-old.

Things change if Amari Cooper’s health suffers this season. Cooper has dealt with minor nagging injuries throughout his career. If he misses even moderate time in 2021, he may not justify his contract. At that point, it may make sense to re-sign Gallup to a $12-15 million/season deal and cut bait with Coop. Especially if CeeDee Lamb elevates to WR1 this year.

But that’s a scenario we won’t know about until AFTER the 2021 season.

For as much as we like Michael Gallup, the Dallas Cowboys just can’t afford to re-sign him AND retain Cooper for the foreseeable future. Not at a time when they need to devote more money and resources to their defense.