Malaki Starks is flourishing amid Ravens’ defensive turnaround — and earning elite PFF grades
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Baltimore Ravens
- Malaki Starks is turning the page from a tough start to the season: The rookie was immediately thrust into a starting role, and while that has led to some growing pains, he is now the NFL’s highest-graded defender over the past two weeks.
- An easier schedule has helped, but Starks’ improvement remains notable: The Ravens are past a difficult early-season slate that included games against the Bills, Lions and Chiefs, with Starks owning a shaky 50.6 PFF overall grade through Week 8.
- The Baltimore Ravens sit just one game back of the Steelers in the AFC North after taking down the Vikings in Week 10: Dive into the PFF game recap for advanced stats, snap counts, early player grades and more!
Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes
Late in the first quarter of the Baltimore Ravens’ Week 6 matchup with the Los Angeles Rams, rookie safety Malaki Starks found himself matched up in the red zone with savvy veteran wideout Davante Adams.
Adams shimmied, and Starks bit. At the back of the endzone, the receiver raised his hand to tell quarterback Matthew Stafford, “I’m open.”
If not for a too-tall throw to the 6-foot-1 Adams, it would have been an easy score. The rookie wouldn’t be so fortunate later on, when play action fooled him into leaving tight end Tyler Higbee wide open in the flat for an eight-yard touchdown in the third quarter.
By then, whispers on social media began to marry Starks’ name with that of Ravens 2013 first-round pick Matt Elam, who quickly fell out of favor with the coaching staff due to missed tackles and coverage busts. It was the typical knee-jerk reaction expected of the internet, but the noise was growing nonetheless.
Those two plays were among Starks’ worst of the season — garnering -1 grades on the -2 to 2 PFF scale — but it had still been just six games for the first-rounder, who was thrust into a starting role from the get-go in a defense marred by injuries early in the year.
The Ravens’ fortunes have since turned, as have Starks’.
Through Week 8, he ranked seventh among nine rookie safeties in PFF overall grade (50.6). Over the past two weeks, he is the NFL’s highest-graded defender (92.7), having logged elite 90.0-plus PFF overall grades in both contests.
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Baltimore is also on a three-game win streak, clawing back into the playoff picture after opening the campaign with a dismal 1-5 record. The team’s schedule has gotten significantly easier, of course. Matchups against the Bears, Dolphins and Vikings pale in comparison to battles with the Bills, Lions and Chiefs. Still, Starks — and the team overall — is taking advantage.
He has allowed all of 10 yards on four targets into his coverage across his past two outings against the Dolphins and Vikings, with two interceptions to boot. Since his lackluster Week 6 outing, Starks hasn’t earned a -1 grade on any of his 185 snaps.
Baltimore’s 29.5% successful play rate allowed over the past two weeks ranks fourth in the NFL, a stark contrast to the defense’s 28th-ranked clip from Weeks 1-8. In the same vein, the Ravens are surrendering -0.115 EPA per play since Week 9 (sixth best), compared to 0.103 (29th) in the early-season span.
Against the Vikings in Week 10, Starks smoothly picked off a J.J. McCarthy deep shot to Justin Jefferson, thwarting an opportunity for Minnesota to build a two-score lead. In the end, the Ravens claimed a 27-19 victory. The elite Jefferson was charted as “open” zero times in five matchups with Starks in coverage.
No Ravens player has logged more snaps than Starks (601) this season. Baltimore’s front office and coaching staff have trusted him from the start to be a leader on the backend. The rookie’s high highs and low lows will likely continue as he develops, but he is now rewarding the belief in him as Baltimore fights to sit back atop the AFC North.
