Kyle Hamilton Believes Ravens S Maliki Starks Could Be An All Pro. For Good Reason

With the Baltimore Ravens holding the 27th overall pick inn 2025, and having some pressing needs on the offensive line and looking glaringly thin on pass rush and having the preponderance of their assets already sunk into their secondary, they did what so many expected.

They selected a potential playmaking safety with that pick, Georgia’s Malaki Starks, despite having just grabbed safety Kyle Hamilton with the 14th pick in 2022 and despite having a roster dotted with former first-round picks at corner, including 2024 top-pick Nate Wiggins. And the true rewards from that selection should truly start to manifest this season.

The overarching philosophy of this front office is to collect as many difference makers on the back end as possible; sadly, implicit in that was that general manager Eric DeCosta was going to undermine them by spending next to nothing on pass rush and being unable to evaluate it in the draft or cultivate it in its prime from anyone else’s roster.

So the gamble didn’t work, Baltimore’s defensive slide hit new lows in 2025, and Starks, had a mostly solid but certainly unspectacular season. Head coach John Harbaugh and defensive coordinator Zach Orr were among a massive organizational purge, and the new head coach, Jesse Minter, is also the defensive playcaller with a well-earned reputation as an elite coordinator. Minter is also a product of this Ravens front office, thus he sees the import of the secondary the same way they do and revels in a multiplicity of body types and skillsets back there.

Oh, and unlike Orr, he has a $30M/year pass rusher in Trey Hendrickson and a potential surplus of pass-rushing options and the signs are pointing to top five defensive tackle Nnamdi Madubuuke being on the field for infinitely more than the 99 snaps he played last season now following neck surgery. Which brings us back to Starks and why, with the team putting on the pads at training camp for the first time Monday, so many eyes will be on him with the potential for an impact season quite high.

“He has the license to be as good as he wants to be,” Minter said Saturday (the Ravens are off Sunday). “He has a great skill set, proven by where he was picked and all that as he was coming out of Georgia. They do a great job at Georgia with DBs, so they are well-trained and they have a lot of versatility.

“They do a lot of different things there with [Georgia head coach Kirby Smart]. He got a lot of playing time. I think he led the defense in snaps last year. He's played a lot. I think it is building that confidence and that pre-snap look to where [you] can look and anticipate things.

“Then, when you do that, your natural ability allows you to be ahead of the play rather than behind the play. Again, I think he has the license to be as good as he wants to be."

Hamilton himself set the bar even higher this summer, proclaiming:

“Malaki, I don't see a reason why he cannot be the best at his position in our league. He has all the talent, all the mentality, just the approach to the game … Very soon here, I wouldn't be surprised if he is the best safety in our league.”

Making The Leap

With the full depth of options at safety and corner – big slot corners and small slot corners; corners who can function as safeties; numerous box safety options who can also toggle with hybrid linebacker chores (nice free agent finds there) – Minter can tap into every cranny of his playbook. Minter plays as much quarters coverage as anyone in the NFL – cover-4 with defenders taking a quarter of the field – and lives in nickel and dime flooding the field with DBs and wants to stop the run with lighter boxes (as Rams coach Sean McVay broke down for us).

The options for personnel packages in Big Nickel looks (three safeties) abound.

All of that means Hamilton doesn’t have to get wedged into playing centerfield way more than he should or thrust into a less-nebulous role to fill a gap. So he can be moved around all over the place as close to the line of scrimmage as possible; everyone on defense is better if Hamilton is unlocked the way Minter resurrected Derwin James with the Chargers. Which means ramping up Hamilton’s blitz rate too and helping put quarterbacks under even more pressure, which creates more ball-hawking chances for Starks.

That, coupled with Starks now being far advanced in terms of his comfort and knowledge at the NFL level – and with his study skills already exemplary – he should be thinking less and playing faster.

“Just being myself — not being hesitant,” Starks said. “I think, last year, I was really just learning a lot all at once, so I was kind of hesitant. But [the goal is to] just fly around and have fun. My biggest thing is attacking the football — that's the most important thing on a football field. So, any chance I can get to attack the ball, I'm going to take it."

In two years under Orr, the Ravens were 19th in takeaways with 37, and they ranked 20th in interception percentage. At the same time, Minter’s defense in Los Angeles was third in interception rate. Takeaways can vary greatly from year to year but Minter’s ability to toggle between coverages and put players in position to break on the ball out of zone looks has been stellar in the NFL and college. The scheme he shares with Seattle head coach Mike Macdonald (a former Ravens DC) is becoming the envy of the league.

And he does not want for support from a roster standpoint.

“The personnel that we have,” Starks noted, “the guys that I'm playing with — they make it so easy for me to be able to move around and be myself. I think just having trust in the guys you play with allows you to do those things."

Starks had no glaring deficiencies as a rookie, and his biggest issue may have been being with the wrong defense at the wrong time. Two of the three touchdowns he allowed were in goal-to-go situations when Orr went Cover-0 and got burned in the blitz and Starks played only 36 of his 663 coverage snaps – per TruMedia – in a Cover-4 shell last season (5%). That scheme offers abundant support for the primary free safety and Minter used it 20% of the time with LA, and was in Cover-3 or Cover-4 on nearly 60% of the snaps.

That alone will limit what Starks has to read and free him up to follow his eyes. And the improved caliber of player around him likely at all three levels of the defense should bring out the best in him, too. Anything less, would be a major disappointment, frankly.

“The biggest thing about the scheme is just to go make plays,” Starks explained, “trust yourself, trust the defense and just fly around and have fun. I think the defense as a whole is building a connection that we didn't have before, and I think that's what we're striving towards."

Subscribe To "The Daily Flock" For The Most Informed Ravens Coverage:

Add us as a preferred source on Google