'YAC King' Malachi Corley eager to take his place with Jets receivers
Western Kentucky wide receiver Malachi Corley (11) celebrates a touchdown during the New Orleans Bowl NCAA football game against South Alabama in New Orleans, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton) Credit: AP/Matthew Hinton
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Robert Saleh joked that new Jets receiver Malachi Corley has such an attack mentality that if a relative were sitting at the goal line, Corley would run over him.
There might be some truth to that.
“Dang right. I definitely would,” Corley said. “My brother is 6-3, 250 [pounds] and every single day over the summer, me and him are fully padded up together, we’re going at it every day. He’s the safety, I’m the receiver. I catch the ball and make moves and I lower my shoulder on him all the time, so I’m used to that.”
This is one of the things in Corley’s makeup and game that appealed to the Jets.
They wanted Washington receiver Rome Odunze in the first round. When he was taken ninth, the Jets traded down from 10 and took left tackle Olu Fashanu.
They made sure they didn’t miss out on the receiver they targeted on Day 2. The Jets traded up from 72 to 65 in the third round on Friday night to draft Corley, a senior from Western Kentucky.
General manager Joe Douglas did a good job of making sure he got Aaron Rodgers help this season and set the Jets up for the future. Fashanu is the Jets’ left tackle of the future (they signed Tyron Smith this offseason) and Corley is a receiver who will help the Jets now.
After the pick was made, the Jets’ social media team posted a photo of a text exchange between Douglas and Saleh from Friday morning. Douglas texted Saleh a picture of Corley breaking a tackle and wrote “no matter what” under it. Saleh responded “no matter what.”
It was a reference from the Kevin Costner movie “Draft Day,” but in the end, the Jets got their man.
“He plays with violence and anger,” Douglas said. “You can do a lot of different things with him. The way he catches the ball, the way he attacks defenders after the catch. It was a good fit for the style we want to play.”
Corley has been compared to 49ers do-it-all receiver Deebo Samuel. The 5-11, 210-pound Corley can line up in the slot, outside or in the backfield, run jet sweeps and turn screen passes into big gains. He is known for being hard to bring down, like Samuel.
Nicknamed “YAC King’’ for his Yards After the Catch proclivity, Corley led the nation with 40 broken tackles as a junior. In his last two seasons, he caught 180 passes for 2,279 yards, including an FBS-best 1,658 yards after the catch.
“This is a dude that you get the ball in his hands and let him go to work,” Saleh said. “He’s a guy that plays angry, runs angry . . . There’s one thing he does unbelievably, and that’s when the ball’s in his hand, he makes DBs pay. He fights for extra yards. The guy doesn’t run out of bounds.”
The confident Corley, who played just about every position at small Campbellsville High School in Kentucky, loves his nickname but said he didn’t come up with it.
“College football did,” Corley said, adding that it came “out of nowhere” during his junior season, when he totaled 975 yards after the catch.
“Everybody just started calling me the YAC King,” he said. “Ever since then, that’s kind of been my staple, my name. I love it. I’ve been starting to call myself, ‘Don YAC,’ so I really like it.”
Corley gives the Jets a different element and complements what they already have both in the receiver room and on their offense.
Garrett Wilson is a more refined receiver who excels everywhere. Mike Williams can make catches in traffic and beat guys deep and is a big target in the red zone. The Jets also have dual-threat running back Breece Hall, productive tight end Tyler Conklin and Lindenhurst’s Jeremy Ruckert, who is expected to have a bigger role this year.
The Jets’ offense, which was one of the least productive and most predictable last season, could be really diverse and explosive, especially with Rodgers delivering the football.
“I am excited because in college and high school, I was the horse for our team, so everyone knew every single game what they were getting from me,” Corley said. “Going into a system that has such established players and I can’t be double-teamed or I can’t be bracketed or all these things, it lights my eyes up. I’m thinking I’m going to get off out here.”
Al Iannazzone covers the Jets for Newsday after spending nearly two decades on the NBA beat with Knicks and Nets.
