Michael Gallup has now been cleared from the reserve-retired list by the Las Vegas Raiders, as the wide receiver is preparing to return to the NFL in 2025. The 29-year-old appears ready to lace up his cleats once more after stepping away from football last year.
Just before the Raiders began their training camp in 2024, Gallup made the sudden decision to retire. He had signed a one-year contract worth up to $3 million on April 30 and participated in both organized team activities and minicamp before calling it quits.
Before aiming to secure the No. 3 receiver role with Las Vegas, Gallup had been let go by the Dallas Cowboys. He spent six years with the Cowboys, where he caught 266 passes for 3,744 yards and reached the end zone 21 times.
Career High and Injury Struggles
His most productive year in Dallas came during the 2019 season, as he recorded 66 receptions, 1,107 yards, and six touchdowns across 14 games. That was the only season where he surpassed the 1,000-yard receiving mark.
Things changed for Gallup after he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during the 2021 campaign. Despite the injury, the Cowboys offered him a five-year deal worth $57.5 million in 2022, though his performance dipped afterward.
He no longer showed the same explosiveness that previously helped him average 15.5 yards per catch. Between 2022 and 2023, Gallup pulled in 73 receptions for a total of 842 yards and scored six touchdowns. He didn’t manage to record a single 100-yard game during the regular season in either year.
Changes in the Raiders Offensive Line
Alongside Gallup’s release, the Raiders are also moving toward releasing starting center Andre James. Sources confirmed to ESPN that the release is expected to happen at the beginning of the new league year, which supports earlier reports by NFL Network.
James had signed a three-year contract worth $24 million ahead of the 2024 season. During that year, he played in 13 games and started in 11 of them.
This decision will allow Las Vegas to clear $1.5 million in salary cap space, which could be redirected elsewhere on the roster. With this development, rookie Jackson Powers-Johnson is expected to step into the center position. In his first NFL season, Powers-Johnson logged 400 snaps at center and another 504 at guard.
He came out of the University of Oregon as one of the most praised offensive linemen in college football, where he was honored as a unanimous All-American and received the Rimington Trophy in 2023.
