Report: Michael Gallup suffered calf strain against Buccaneers, expected to miss 3-5 weeks

The Dallas Cowboys were defeated by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Thursday night and are now officially 0-1 on the season. Unfortunately though the loss didn’t quite end in Florida.

We all saw Michael Gallup dealing with an injury near the end of the game and his return to the contest was even reported as questionable by the broadcast. Enough time has passed for a proper diagnosis to be made and Gallup has a calf strain that is expected to make him miss 3-5 weeks.

No injury is ever great, but Michael Gallup is among the better players on the Cowboys roster. Losing him for any stretch of time is going to be tough. Dallas is fortunate to have a bevy of top wide receiver options - Amari Cooper was outstanding on Thursday night, CeeDee Lamb did not have his finest hour - and their depth is now going to have to step up.

Cedrick Wilson really started to emerge early on last season when Dak Prescott was still playing and had a couple of nice moments on Thursday night. He will likely be the player that Dallas leans on most when they maintain 11 personnel. Noah Brown, activated this week off of the Reserve/COVID-19 list but inactive on Thursday, has had a great camp and preseason period and will also be called upon.

It is possible that we don’t see Michael Gallup until after the Cowboys bye. Consider their next six weeks:

• at Los Angeles Chargers
• Philadelphia Eagles
• Carolina Panthers
• New York Giants
• at New England Patriots
• BYE

There are exactly five games between now and the bye week for Dallas. If things go well for them, meaning if they win more games than not between now and then, they might try to keep Gallup on ice so that he gets the proper rest needed to fully get right. He will likely be placed on injured reserve soon enough which will mandate that he miss at least three weeks which falls in line with the timeline reported.

The season is here which means the bumps in the road will start to come. Here we go.