‘I need to make a statement’: Cowboys WR Michael Gallup loud and clear despite limited duty in Week 4 win

Nine months to the day after tearing his ACL while making an acrobatic touchdown catch versus Arizona, Cowboys wide receiver Michael Gallup was finally back on the field… and back in the end zone.

His nine-yard haul in the second quarter was one of just two total on the day, but it was monumental in the moment, giving Dallas a 12-7 edge just before halftime and a lead they would not relinquish en route to a 25-10 win.

But his grab in the back of the end zone was of far greater importance to Gallup himself, marking the symbolic end of a long journey of recovery.

“I definitely had jitters,” the fifth-year veteran said, speaking of his mindset before kickoff. “You’re supposed to. But I felt way better this week, just from a mental aspect.”

Gallup had been cleared to make his return to action in Week 4, in a primetime matchup against the Giants. But the 26-year-old kept himself on the team’s inactive list, telling coaches that he felt he needed one more week’s worth of practice reps before exposing himself and his surgically-repaired knee to full-speed enemy fire.

His first catch Sunday checked a lot of boxes: a jump to secure the ball, defender contact in the air, landing back on the turf, getting twisted down, and, most important… popping back up afterward.

“I know that my heart was relieved,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said following the win. “Everybody’s heart should be relieved. That’s quite a step mentally to come back from the type of injury that Michael had. That’s tough for any of these players to play through injury and get back, on a confidence basis, your strength or your ability to play the game. He’s been patient with himself. Obviously, as a team, we’re patient with him. But it was good to see him make that contribution out here today.”

Gallup’s bigger contribution came on a scramble drill just a few minutes later. Backup quarterback Cooper Rush had been flushed out of the pocket and was rolling right. Gallup’s instincts came back, and he mirrored Rush’s movement 15 yards downfield.

Gallup’s score came in the opposite corner of the same end zone where he suffered his Jan. 2 injury. After the game went final, Gallup admitted that it was a full-circle moment that he’d been thinking about for a long time.

“I’ve been envisioning it ever since I got hurt,” he said. “It’s like, when I came back, I need to make a statement.”

Despite catching just two passes for 24 yards on the day, it was a statement that everyone within the Cowboys organization heard loud and clear.

“With Michael, you’d better be on your game, particularly vertically,” head coach Mike McCarthy explained in his postgame press conference. “It was good to get him in the flow of the rest of the offense. It was great to have him back, and I think it’s obvious what he means to us, particularly our offensive perimeter.”

While Noah Brown has stepped up and performed admirably in an increased role and youngsters KaVontae Turpin, Simi Fehoko, and Jalen Tolbert all have promise and potential, Gallup’s veteran experience shone brightly at a moment when the Cowboys needed a spark.

“It’s exactly what you would expect from him: he looked like Mike Gallup,” Rush said from the podium.

“He’s caught a lot of touchdowns like that over the years like when Dak’s hit him on the back line on a scramble. I just came out and saw CeeDee [Lamb] there and kind of behind him; 13 was hauling. He just finds the window. He did a great job running and left himself some room back there to get his feet down. Just a classic M.G. play.”

And he did it on limited chances. Gallup was in on fewer than two-thirds of the team’s offensive plays, but fellow wideout CeeDee Lamb felt his impact immediately.

“Crucial,” Lamb said. “He’s a crucial piece to this offense. We’re just trying to build this puzzle, and he’s a very importance piece. We’ve got a couple more to go.”

Dak Prescott and Tyron Smith, of course, are still rehabbing their injuries and working their way back to the field. And summer acquisition James Washington, once he returns, will further help draw coverage away from Lamb, just as Gallup did on Sunday.

“I mean, he went for nine receptions and for, like, 130 [yards],” Gallup said of Lamb and his own role in boosting Lamb’s numbers. “Somebody is going to get doubled, and somebody else is going to catch the ball. It’s just what it is, we know that. I actually owe CeeDee some money because he got more YAC [yards after catch] than I did, but we won’t talk about that.”

In fact, Gallup didn’t want to spend a lot of time talking about his clutch scoring grab at all, even though it was so personally gratifying and so long in coming.

Sure, he reeled in the go-ahead touchdown, but it’s not like his comeback to the field was the absolute best it could have been.

“Nah,” Gallup smiled. “I could’ve had two.”

List

10 takeaways include Cooper Rush, defense making Cowboys history in Week 4

List

Twitter reacts: New name, uniforms and logo but same results, Cowboys win 25-10 over Washington

Story originally appeared on Cowboys Wire