Ravens' Malaki Starks Sees Perfect Fit in Baltimore

As exciting as the first round of the NFL Draft can and is for prospects projected to hear their names called on opening night of the three-day event, it can also be stressful, long and prompt anxiety.

Those emotions are often amplified tenfold for the select few prospects like former Georgia safety Malaki Starks who got invited to attend the annual event with the hopes of having the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to walk out on stage and be greeted by the NFL commissioner.

After waiting several hours for his phone to ring and find out where the next chapter of his life was going to begin, Starks was sitting on the couch in the green room about to start playing a game of UNO when the moment he had been waiting for finally arrived when Baltimore was on the clock.

“I heard the phone ring and I knew I was a Raven,” Starks said. “I’m excited, I don’t want to waste the opportunity (and) I’m ready to get to work.”

With the No. 27 overall pick in the first round, the projected pairing that countless pundits and analysts predicted came to fruition and he couldn’t have been any happier to land with the Charm City franchise.

“I feel like it was a really good place for me to be just with the type of organization that they run and the history that they have there as well,” Starks said.

With the position-less approach the Ravens have adapted with their secondary in recent years, Starks feels like he will fit right in and can’t wait to learn from some of the established star players already on the team.

“Just to come in and learn from a guy like Kyle Hamilton and a lot of vets in the room like Marlon Humphrey,” Starks said. “I think it’s amazing and I think I fit the culture very well.”

The former SEC star couldn’t be any more correct in his assertion of how perfect of an addition he is to the Ravens defensive backfield and defensive as a whole.

After an abysmal start to the 2024 season in which they had the last-ranked pass defense in the league, Baltimore had to shake up and in some ways limit what they could do in the backend to cloud the picture for opposing quarterbacks and make more plays on the ball. With Starks in the fold, they can get back to being a multifaceted unit whose versatility is its greatest strength.

“That’s why they do so well on the defensive side of the ball,” Starks said. “They have a lot of guys that can move around and be in different spots and produce at a high level and I feel like I bring that as well. I think I’m a safety that can move around. I feel comfortable at the safety spot but I feel comfortable playing anywhere.”

As a true freshman in 2022, Starks was a starter on a national-championship-winning defense and feels like the ultra-competitive conference he played in during college got him ready to play in a black-and-blue division like the AFC North.

“Coming from a place like the University of Georgia with that physicality that we play in the SEC, it gets you prepared to go in the league and y’know keep that physicality but also learn how to be more physical,” Starks said.

Even though he hasn’t received his playbook yet, Starks already feels like he has a “good feel” for how he will be able to impact the Ravens defense after meeting with team officials at the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine and virtually via Zoom.

“I’m ready to go learn, there’s a lot more I have to learn but I’m ready to get in and, like I said, just learn from the vets and really just dive into the whole process of being a Raven,” Starks said.

The Ravens went from tying for the league in takeaways in 2023 with 31 as part of their historic triple crown to tying for the 12th-most with just 17 in 2024. With the departure of Geno Stone in free agency last offseason and the regression of veteran Marcus Williams during the regular season, they missed having a playmaking ballhawk roaming the backend.

Starks possess some of the best ball skills of any prospect in this year’s draft and comes from a defensive system that emphasized taking the ball away.

“That was a big thing that we harped on,” Starks said. “The game of football is all about the ball so just being able to have my strengths and being able to highpoint and take the ball away in scenarios, I think that’s huge and I think that I’ll create value for myself and the team as well.”

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