Malcolm Xiomar Perry (born April 19, 1997) is an American officer in the United States Marine Corps and a former professional football wide receiver. He attended the United States Naval Academy, where he played college football for the Navy Midshipmen from 2016 to 2019.
The son of United States Army personnel, Perry was a military brat who grew up in Tennessee. After high school and attending the Naval Academy Preparatory School, he joined the main campus and football team in 2016, where he played a variety of positions. He cycled between quarterback and slotback for his first two seasons before becoming the starting quarterback in 2018. After struggling that year and returning to slotback, he permanently reverted to quarterback in 2019. As a senior, he set various Navy and NCAA records, including the most rushing yards by a quarterback in a season, and was named American Athletic Conference (AAC) Offensive Player of the Year.
He was selected by the Miami Dolphins in the seventh round of the 2020 NFL draft. Perry spent his rookie season in Miami, during which he scored his first touchdown, before joining the New England Patriots prior to the 2021 season. After spending time on the Patriots' and New Orleans Saints' practice squads, he retired from the NFL in 2022 to begin his military service.
Early life Perry was born in Fort Campbell, where his parents Bonny and Malcolm Sr. were stationed as members of the United States Army. The family later moved to Clarksville, Tennessee. After growing up with basketball, Perry began playing football in third grade.
He attended Kenwood High School, where he played high school football for the Knights. He was named the team's quarterback in his sophomore year and led the team to three consecutive Class 5A state playoff appearances; all three postseason runs ended with losses to opponents that would make the state championship (with two winning). Perry's junior year saw him record 1,000 yards each in rushing and passing, a performance that ClarksvilleNow.com's Jimmy Trodglen wrote "almost carried the Knights offense alone." In his senior season in 2014, he recorded 800 passing yards, 1,600 rushing yards, and 20 touchdowns as he was named District 10 Most Valuable Player and The Leaf-Chronicle All Area Player of the Year. Perry concluded his high school career with two All-State selections.
College career After high school, Perry contemplated attending Middle Tennessee State University, where his older sister's friends played for the Blue Raiders football team, or enlisting in the armed forces. Although he hoped to play running back for the University of Tennessee, the team did not express interest in him. Instead, he was recruited by the three service academies in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS)—Army, Navy, and Air Force—and his hometown school Austin Peay. Perry committed to Navy as the academy allowed him to play football in addition to serving, while the team also allowed him to select his position; in contrast, Air Force and Army wished to keep him at quarterback. In 2015, before enrolling at the main academy, he attended the Naval Academy Preparatory School. Despite starting the NAPS football season at slotback, he was moved to quarterback after starter Jonah Llanusa broke his wrist.
2016 During Perry's freshman year in 2016, offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper switched his position from slotback to quarterback. In addition to playing for the junior varsity team, he began the varsity season sharing the third-string quarterback spot with Zach Abey before being demoted to fourth string due to illness.
Perry made his varsity debut against Fordham after starting quarterback Tago Smith suffered an ACL tear. Although he was initially inactive for the game and instead watched from the stands, the injury forced the Midshipmen to pull Perry into action, while team equipment members had to return to campus to retrieve his uniform. Backup Will Worth played much of the game and Abey was suspended, leading to Perry seeing action in the fourth quarter. He led a 90-yard drive that resulted in a field goal, and ended the 52–16 Navy win with seven carries for 30 yards.
He saw playing time at slotback in Navy's game with SMU, where he recorded one carry for 13 yards. In the 2016 Armed Forces Bowl against Louisiana Tech, Perry entered the game with 3:46 remaining after Abey suffered an injury and scored on his lone play, a 30-yard touchdown run to tie the game at 45 points apiece. However, the Bulldogs kicked the game-winning field goal on the ensuing drive. It was Perry's first college touchdown and his only score in 2016 as he finished the season with nine carries for 73 yards.
2017
Entering the 2017 season, Perry was expected to serve as Abey's backup quarterback since he was the only other player on the team to have varsity experience at the position. However, Navy head coach Ken Niumatalolo moved him to slotback as he wanted to provide playing time for Perry; the change was spurred by Smith spending much of his Navy career backing up Keenan Reynolds, only to suffer a season-ending injury in his first game as a starter. Niumatalolo described Perry as "a very athletic kid who can help us and I'm going to get him on the field. I'm not going to have him standing on the sideline sending in signals." With Abey as the starter and junior Garret Lewis as backup, Llansula was originally slated as the third-string quarterback before he left the team, leading to Perry sharing the role with Jacob Harrison. Perry would start all 12 games in his sophomore year, including three at quarterback, and also served as the Midshipmen's kick returner after the incumbent Tre Walker was lost for the season to injury.
Perry's first 100-rushing yard game came against Cincinnati, followed by 104- and 127-yard performances against Tulsa and Air Force, respectively; the latter was a then-career-best for Perry. The Air Force game also saw him record a 91-yard touchdown, the third-longest carry in Navy history and the longest at Navy–Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, along with his first receiving touchdown on a 40-yard completion from Abey. In a 31–21 loss to UCF, Perry scored a 75-yard receiving touchdown and had a second score that was nullified by a holding penalty.
Against Temple, Perry completed his first touchdown pass with a five-yard throw to Abey; the score came on a trick play that began with Abey pretending to give audibles to his team before the ball was snapped to running back Darryl Bonner, who pitched to Perry on a reverse, who in turn threw to Abey for the touchdown. Abey suffered a shoulder injury in the loss, leading to Perry making his maiden start at quarterback the following against SMU. Although he recorded 282 rushing yards and four touchdowns, including a 92-yard run that was the second-longest rushing score in the team's history, he sprained his left ankle in the fourth quarter; Navy would win 43–40 after the Mustangs came back from a 34–11 halftime deficit. For the season's remaining games, Niumatalolo opted to name starting quarterbacks shortly before kickoffs as Perry and Abey's differing playing styles (Perry preferred to run to the outside and could quickly change his pace, while Abey was a better passer and employed a more physical running style) forced opponents to prepare differently even if Navy fundamentally ran the same offense regardless of the starter.
The 2017 Army–Navy Game saw Perry start at quarterback, though Navy went on to lose 14–13. In snowy conditions, he recorded 250 rushing yards on 30 attempts, including a 68-yard touchdown, but penalties on the final drive hampered the Midshipmen offense and resulted in Bennett Moehring's game-winning 48-yard field goal going wide left. Perry's rushing yards accounted for 84 percent of his team's total yardage in the game and were nine more than Army's total. The performance also allowed Perry to break 1,000 rushing yards in 2017; Abey also accomplished the feat, allowing Navy to have its third duo of 1,000-yard rushers in a season. The Midshipmen, who started with a 5–0 record, concluded the regular season 6–6 and played in the Military Bowl against Virginia. Perry scored two touchdowns and rushed for 114 yards before leaving with a foot injury in the 49–7 victory. The 114 rushing yards were the second-most in bowl history behind Reynolds' 144 in 2015.
He ended the year with 1,182 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns; he averaged 8.6 yards per carry, a Navy record and the third-highest in the nation. His 303 receiving yards and two touchdowns on 13 catches were second-best on the team.
2018 Perry began his junior year in 2018 as the Midshipmen's starting quarterback. Although he had thrown only two passes in his college career—one of which was intercepted—and Navy did not feature a pass-heavy offense, Jasper noted Perry possessed "a good arm" and threw "a great deep ball". As part of his new responsibilities, Perry transitioned into Navy's full triple option offense; in 2017, he only saw action at quarterback when the offense ran the read option from the shotgun formation. In July, he was placed on the preseason watch lists for the Maxwell (best college football player), Paul Hornung (most versatile player), and Walter Camp Awards (the Walter Camp Football Foundation's best player).
The Midshipmen opened 2018 with a 59–41 loss to Hawaii, during which Perry recorded 108 rushing yards and a 75-yard touchdown late in the first half. He also threw his first touchdown pass as a quarterback on a 19-yard score to Walker in the fourth quarter. In Navy's first American Athletic Conference (AAC) game of the year against Memphis, Perry led the team in all three offensive yardage categories (166 rushing, 22 passing, 17 receiving), the school's second player to do so after Reynolds in 2015; he also scored a "highlight-reel touchdown" as he dodged multiple Memphis players en route to a 14-yard touchdown run. This was followed by a 51–21 victory over Lehigh, during which Perry ran for 223 yards and three touchdowns as the Midshipmen recorded 629 total yards (tenth-most in program history), though he struggled with arm strength and accuracy as a passer.
The offense struggled through the next games, including a 35–7 loss to Air Force that dropped Navy to 2–3. The Midshipmen recorded just six first downs and 199 total yards in the loss, while Perry had a mere 54 yards on 19 carries (a number that was skewed by a 20-yard run). In a column published after the defeat, Capital Gazette writer and Navy beat reporter Bill Wagner criticized the team for its excessive reliance on Perry, whose 105 carries across the first five games greatly exceeded his teammates' attempts. Wagner called for Navy to "admit the Malcolm Perry experiment has been a mistake" as "Perry is a running back and not a quarterback. I completely understand the logic of wanting to put the ball in the hands of the best offensive player as much as possible, but Navy's coaching staff is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole in its desperate attempt to do so." TheMidReport's Mike James wrote Perry was "a year behind in his development as a quarterback" due to spending the previous year as a slotback, with Navy's offense consequently growing too complex for him; the system used in the Air Force game was simplified to aid Perry, but James noted the offense was the same used against Army in 2017 shortly after Perry returned to quarterback, which Air Force capitalized on.