Jets Promising Playmaker Was Set Up To Fail

The New York Jets added a handful of pieces last year with the hopes of turning things around for the franchise in 2024.

Among all of the moves New York made, one was adding wide receiver Malachi Corley with the No. 65 overall pick in the third round of the 2024 National Football League Draft. Unfortunately, things didn't work out for Corley as a rookie.

Corley didn’t have a prolific rookie season. He finished the year with three catches for 16 yards on nine targets in nine games. It's hard to get opportunities when you have playmakers around like Garrett Wilson, Davante Adams, and Breece Hall among others.

He has been talked about a lot this offseason as New York has a handful of receivers so his role with the franchise isn’t clear right now again. That seems pretty harsh as he was just a rookie in a star-studded offense with a quarterback who is known to have very few receivers he fully trusts, and therefore they ended up on the Jets' roster. Corley didn't have time to work up to that.

Training camp will be here in a few weeks and at the very least it sounds like he has a better chance at success now. On top of the difficulties of being a rookie in general, ESPN’s Rich Cimini shared that he "never was embraced" by the former coaching staff.

"For all the draft-day fanfare, Corley never was embraced by the previous coaching staff -- which noticed immediately that his route running lacked precision, likely the byproduct of having a limited route tree at WKU," Cimini said. "His maturity also came under scrutiny, with some in the organization privately questioning his approach, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

"The entire building was under intense pressure to win, and the coaches didn't trust him enough to put him in the game, especially with the ultra-demanding Rodgers running the show. Corley played only nine games, just 83 snaps on offense, and finished with three receptions for 16 yards. He was a healthy scratch in five games. Because he didn't play special teams, it was difficult to put him on the game-day roster."

It's hard to have success when you have the deck stacked against you. But, maybe we'll see something else in training camp now with a new era in town.