Malachi Corley 2024 NFL Draft Profile
The 2024 NFL Draft profiles are coming at you one after another, and we have another receiver profile here for you. We’re going to be talking about Western Kentucky’s Malachi Corley, also known as the YAC King. Corley was super productive during his time at WKU, but some question if his stats are inflated from poor competition or if he is that good. We will discuss that and more in his draft profile. Let’s talk about it.
Here are the last three years’ stats for Malachi Corley:
- 2021: 73 catches, 691 yards, seven touchdowns
- 2022: 101 catches, 1,293 yards, 11 touchdowns
- 2023: 79 catches, 984 yards, 11 touchdowns
I don’t care about the argument you have regarding competition. Because in theory if you are at a small school, chances are your Quarterback might not be very good. Who were his QBs? Bailey Zappe and Austin Reed, my point has been made. You still have to have the talent to get open, work in open space and produce at the level he did over his last three years. If you can play, you can play. A wise man once told me, just watch the tape. I did one better and watched him live at the Senior Bowl.
The tape will show you that the YAC King moniker Malachi Corley has is true. Corley is an absolute menace in the open field. He is a hard man to bring down with his build (5’11, 215 lbs). His underneath prowess is fun to watch, and he is very good at catching balls away from his body using very strong hands. He played a bit outside while at Western Kentucky but I think he projects more as a pure slot receiver, if that isn’t your cup of tea that’s fine. The play speed matches the timed speed, which I want to touch on quickly.
Corley did not participate at the NFL Combine due to illness, but just had his pro day recently. He was timed with a 4.45 40-yard dash and pumped out 27 reps on the bench press. That 27-rep count would have had him first among receivers by SIX REPS. That’s the same number as Joe Alt. Do with that as you will.
The route tree has me a little concerned. A lot of his catches were not very deep, and easy to run. The tree is pretty limited and if he really will play mostly in the slot in the NFL, he is going to need to expand that pretty quickly.
Some folks might be turned off by Malachi Corley, only viewing him as a pure slot receiver. I don’t share a similar concern, especially if I am a team that has my outside receivers pretty locked up. I have a late day two grade on Corley, mostly leaning toward using a third-round pick on him. I think there are better “pure slot” guys in the draft, but Corley definitely has a place in the NFL and should be a nice pro.
