Former Jets receiver Davante Adams had Warriors star Draymond Green and NFL insider Jordan Schultz in stitches after he revealed the story behind his wild exchange with Malachi Corley in his attempt to get the No. 17.
Adams, who said he can laugh about it now, recalled how the then-rookie receiver tried to strong-arm him for $1 million to hand over the jersey number after the Jets acquired Adams from the Raiders in mid-October.
The three-time All-Pro wide receiver, now with the Rams, said he reached out to Corley the night before he was headed to his first practice with the Jets and offered to pay him “17 racks” for the No. 17, which Corley had been wearing at the start of last season.
“I’m not just going to come up here and bogart, steal it from you. Rip it off your back,” Adams said on the “Why is Draymond Green Talking About Football? With Jordan Schultz” podcast published on Thursday. “But I’m also not about to go buy you no Rolex as a rookie, at the end of the day. I give you this 17K, you can figure out what you want to do with it.”
But the response that the veteran NFL star got caught him off guard.
“So he responds and he [says], ‘Hey man, it’s good to have you. Happy to have you on the squad’ or whatever. ‘But I need $1 million,’” Adams recalled what Corley said. “That was what that boy told me. He said he needs $1 million for the number.”
Adams initially thought that Corley was joking with him over the figure it would take to get him to cough up the No. 17, so he responded with laughter.
Adams, 32, then joked that he needed to get his number situation figured out before he spoke with reporters and that he had “heard 14 was open.”
“[Corley] said, and I’m dead-ass serious, ’14 would look good on you, I think,’” Adams recalled.
The cold response had the two hosts in shock, with Green shouting, “Oh my god!”
Adams admitted it was something that upset him at the time, but that he got to a place where he now finds the whole thing funny.
He eventually got 17 without having to hand over any money by going through “the route I needed to go to make it happen,” and, at the next practice, Adams said he got a bit more respect from Corley.
Adams said he ended up having a good relationship with the young wideout who was taken in the third round out of Western Kentucky.
“I go out there and grace the field. After, he come and dap me up. ‘Good practice, 17,’” Adams said about the moment. “I was like, yeah, OK, that sounds about right. That sounds right.”
Corley ended up playing nine games in 2024 for the Jets and was cut in August after a disappointing season with just three catches. He signed onto the Browns’ practice squad.
Adams made 67 catches for 854 yards and seven touchdowns during his 11-game stint with the Jets last season.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
