Michael Gallup is coming off a down year but CeeDee Lamb thinks the best is yet to come from his Dallas Cowboys teammate after a challenging season.
Gallup was coming off a torn ACL, which forced him to miss the first three games of the season. Putting a little more pressure on Gallup was the fact that he signed a five-year, $57.5 million contract in the offseason, cashing in after some solid seasons in Dallas.
After the season ended, Gallup had two more surgeries to repair the meniscus in his right knee and to clean up his right ankle. It’s clear he was playing through more than he let on, which Lamb alluded to during an interview with Matt Harmon of Yahoo Sports during Super Bowl week.
“We just hit the one-year mark,” Lamb said in reference to Gallup’s ACL injury. “So just understanding that my mans was playing to a lot of injuries. Granted he was prepared to play. You’ll get a couple of MG plays — crazy catches or just hard catches. But you never know what anyone’s going through. I just found out that he had another surgery on his knee and ankle again.”
Lamb said the short weeks didn’t help either.
“It’s always tough. Week in and week out — especially on the shorter weeks,” Lamb said. “We’ve had a lot of short weeks. No one likes Sunday to Thursday. It’s just adjusting and being a professional.”
Lamb Wants More Weapons in Dallas
Gallup finished last season with 39 catches for 424 yards and four touchdowns. Meanwhile, Lamb thrived in his first season as the Cowboys’ unquestioned No. 1 receiver, getting named to the Pro Bowl after 107 catches for 1,359 yards and nine touchdowns.
But Lamb believes the solution for the Cowboys moving forward is to add more weapons to the offense, which he expressed multiple times during Super Bowl week.
“You gotta surround (the quarterback),” Lamb said. “You go look at the Eagles, and they’ve got three receivers, a great tight end group, they run the ball well, the O-line is very phenomenal. You look at San Fran, they surrounded their quarterback and you get success ultimately. I mean we’ve got just as many weapons, but that extra player, all it takes is one. You can be so close to the Super Bowl and it can be a deciding factor.”
If Gallup is healthy, he could certainly fill the No. 2 wide receiver role for the Cowboys. And considering they’ve already invested in him, it would be the preferred path forward, although a veteran like Odell Beckham Jr. — who has been frequently linked to the Cowboys — could help bolster the corps.
KaVontae Turpin Wants Larger Role in Offense
The Cowboys found a gem in KaVontae Turpin, who made the Pro Bowl as a return man. However, the former USFL MVP wants to make an impact on the offensive side of the ball next season with his blazing speed.
“We had a talk during my exit meeting, basically saying like they already know what I did with the special teams this year and all that, but they are going to try and get me on the offense and try to make guys respect me more on both sides of the ball,” Turpin told the “Blogging The Boys podcast” last week. “I’m going into this training camp, I’m basically trying to show them that they have no choice but to use me on offense, that’s my mindset.”
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Cowboys WR CeeDee Lamb Sounds Off on Michael Gallup’s Production