It’s that time of year once again! Football Absurdity will bring you a breakdown of every notable fantasy football-relevant player throughout June, July, and August. We continue with the wide receivers. Today, we take a look at a wide receiver who should be getting a greatly increased target volume this season, but can he overcome a late season ACL tear to be ready to go for the Dallas Cowboys off the bat? Let’s take a look at Michael Gallup in his 2022 fantasy football player profile!
Michael Gallup ADP and AAV:
Average Draft Position: WR55, 128 overall
Average Auction Value: $1.9
Michael Gallup Statistics:
| Year | G | GS | Tgt | Rec | Yards | TD | Tgt/G | Rec/G | Rec% | Yds/Tgt | Yds/Rec |
| 2021 | 9 | 8 | 62 | 35 | 445 | 2 | 7.75 | 3.89 | 56.5% | 7.18 | 12.71 |
| 2020 | 16 | 15 | 105 | 59 | 843 | 5 | 7.00 | 3.69 | 56.2% | 8.03 | 14.29 |
| 2019 | 14 | 12 | 113 | 66 | 1107 | 6 | 7.06 | 4.13 | 58.4% | 9.80 | 16.77 |
| Year | Std Pts | HPPR Pts | PPR Pts | Pts/G | HPPR Pts/G | PPR Pts/G | Pts/Tgt | HPPR Pts/Tgt | PPR Pts/Tgt |
| 2021 | 56.5 | 74.0 | 91.5 | 6.3 | 8.2 | 10.2 | 0.91 | 1.19 | 1.48 |
| 2020 | 114.3 | 143.8 | 173.3 | 7.1 | 9.0 | 10.8 | 1.09 | 1.37 | 1.65 |
| 2019 | 146.7 | 179.7 | 212.7 | 10.5 | 12.8 | 15.2 | 1.30 | 1.59 | 1.88 |
| Year | Air Yards | aDOT | YAC | YAC/Tgt | YAC/Rec | AYMS | Tgt MS |
| 2021 | 712 | 11.5 | 123 | 1.98 | 3.51 | 27% | 17% |
| 2020 | 1252 | 11.8 | 246 | 2.32 | 4.17 | 28% | 18% |
| 2019 | 1376 | 12.2 | 333 | 2.95 | 5.05 | 28% | 21% |
2022 Michael Gallup Fantasy Football Overview:
Michael Gallup is part of a weird trend of players this season—possibly because Cam Akers’ Achilles’ Tendon recovery broke our brains—where we just sort of assume that the health is going to be a-okay and we definitely don’t have to worry about it. He’s alongside J.K. Dobbins (ACL tear), Travis Etienne (Lisfranc fracture), Cam Akers (still looked terrible after the Achilles tear), and Chris Godwin (late-season ACL tear). We are talking about him like it’s a foregone conclusion that he comes back and tears it up (no pun intended). But we forget that he tore his ACL in 2022. He tore it in week seventeen against Arizona, and this was after he suffered a calf injury that cost him seven games in week one of the season.
Granted, I’m not ready to throw the dreaded ~ injury-prone ~ label on Gallup yet. After all, he missed just two games in his first three years in the league. He just had himself an unlucky streak. But, is he worth stashing for when he gets healthy?
First and foremost, his 2021 season left a lot to be desired, even when healthy. He only managed to play more than two-thirds of snaps five times. But, those five games had some vintage Michael Gallup performances, as he finished with 4.5 catches for 56 yards per game in those contests (though he scored just one touchdown). That put him with zero games as a #1 fantasy wide receiver, and he was a WR2 or WR3 in three out of five games where he played a full complement of snaps. That’s not exactly lighting the world on fire, but given that he was in and out of the lineup, you kind of give him a pass.
That’s what we’ve done with Michael Gallup so far in his career: we’ve given him a pass. Even prior to 2021, he finished with just sixteen top-36 finishes in three seasons, and he was outside the top-sixteen 30 times. Well, all of that happened with Amari Cooper, who is now a Cleveland Brown. But, in the last three seasons, Gallup played just two games without Cooper, and he averaged 0.3 additional PPR points in those games as he failed to score a touchdown but added an extra catch for 14 yards.
So, even when healthy, Michael Gallup didn’t really have top-12 wide receiver upside. But, there are only so many of those guys. Is his draft price worth a stash to see what he looks like when he comes back?
2022 Michael Gallup Fantasy Football Draft Strategy:
Michael Gallup Salary Cap Value: $1
Draft Ranking: Find out for your league settings in a Beersheet!
In snake drafts, Michael Gallup is WR55 off the board, at pick 128 overall. That’s an eleventh-round pick in twelve-team leagues. I am more than happy to dive in at that price point, as if you’re drafting now, and he suffers a setback, it’s a bit of a “no harm no foul” situation with Gallup. After all, if you spend an eleventh-round pick, it could be on someone who disappears off the face of the earth, and you cut him anyway. As of right now, you’re getting about a 25 wide receiver discount on Gallup, who, according to Stephen Jones (who handed Gallup a massive contract this offseason), should miss only 2-3 games this year.
In salary cap drafts, he’s in the “can’t get mad at the upside” sub-$2 tier of wide receivers. You have to make sure to not overspend on these guys because there are a ton of them, but if you get Gallup in that tier at that value as a player to stash, I’m not mad at you.
Best Case Scenario:
Michael Gallup returns in week one and takes over the Amari Cooper role, getting 8-9 targets per game and finishing as a top-20 wide receiver.
Worst Case Scenario:
Michael Gallup and Michael Thomas both have six letters in their last name. Makes you think.
Check out all our 2022 player profiles, here.
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[Statistics are sourced from pro-football-reference.com, airyards.com, and ftnfantasy.com]
[Image Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Michael_Gallup%2C_Jason_Garrett_%2844759324724%29.jpg, cropped under CC BY-SA 2.0]
