Malaki Starks- 6 Things To Know About The Eagles Draft Prospect

The Eagles having needs at Edge Rusher and DT was expected. One position that looked secure though was Safety. But with CJ Gardner Johnson now in Houston, suddenly Safety is another need going into the draft. And if they are going to draft a Safety, why not shop at Georgia? Enter Malaki Starks.

Malaki Starks did not put on the most impressive performance in the combine drills. His 40-time and 10-yard Split were mid-table for Safeties, and his cone drill and shuttle performances were the worst for Safeties who tested.

Don't let that fool you, because where Starks shined was in the on-field workouts. There is an easy athleticism to the way he moves around the field. Put the 40-time aside, and look at how he actually moves, and what he did in the workouts, it becomes clear he is the fastest safety in the draft.

Watch the game tape, the speed is even more clear. Fluid is the word people like to use. He zooms around the field with ease, effortlessly keeping up with receivers.

If you need further proof, go back to his time in High School. While at Jefferson High, he won the State Championship in the Long Jump, got a top 5 finish in the 100-meter dash with a blazing time of 10.55, finished as the runner-up in the 4X100, and was a region champ in all 4 events, plus the 200.

All those accomplishments were enough for him to be named the Blitz Track And Field Athlete of The Year.

You dont expect a freshman to join a team coming off a National Championship, and become one of their best players. But that is exactly what Starks did. He wasted no time after showing up in Athens, leading the entire championship defense with 847 snaps, on the way to winning a 2nd Championship.

By his standards, the freshman year was his worst season at Georgia. Compared to other safeties, he was still great. He was 5th in the SEC with 8 combined interceptions and forced incompletions. He also had 68 tackles and earned 1st-Team Freshman All-American honors.

His teammate Kamari Lassiter praised Starks for coming in not only ready to play but ready to learn.

“He’s a young guy, but he’s very talented. He’s like a sponge. He wants to soak up everything that he can learn to become a better player.”

Need someone to drop back deep? Starks has nearly 1200 snaps as the deep safety? Need someone to step up into the box? He did that over 550 times. If you need your Safety to move into the slot for a play, he did that over 600 times. Starks wore a lot of shoes, and all of them fit.

Eagles used to love using Malcolm Jenkins in several different roles, because he more than anyone in the league was capable of that. Since Jenkins left, they have not had someone capable of that. CJ could be a box safety and a free safety, but not so much a true slot guy. Reed Blankenship is mostly just a Box Safety and lacks the range to be a true Free Safety or a slot corner. Sydney Brown is also more of a box safety guy.

Starks could change that. He could fit every role they need him to. Cooper DeJean mostly plays in the slot, but if he has to come off the field, or they need to move him outside, Starks is someone who could step up in the slot like Jenkins used to do.

That athleticism shows up on the field. That was no more evident than in a play he made against Clemson back in August. A play Kirby Smart called one of the best plays he has ever seen.

“I do think the play I saw him make today may be one of the best defensive football plays I’ve ever seen live in person. I’ve seen a lot of them on TV, but that one he twisted and contorted his body and how he can find the ability to go find that ball and get it, it’s pretty.”

But that was not the 1st time he left his coach and teammates stunned. Back when he was a freshman, he had a similar acrobatic interception against Oregon.

The football field is not the only place Starks strives for greatness though. He also strives to be great off the field. And one of the places he does that is by giving back to the community.

Starks was named to the Allstate AFCA Good Works Team. An honor he shares with with fellow Georgia alum Nakobe Dean, who was named to the team back in 2021. Every year the American Football Coaches Association honors 11 players for their work giving back to the Community.

For Starks, it was in large part due to his work with the Wilderness Works Football Camp. Starks helped host 30 Atlanta area kids and assisted in donating $10,000 to local schools. He has also worked with Dicks Sporting Goods to get various kids $300 Gift Cards during the holiday season, among several other projects.

Starks joined ESPN to talk about some of his community service projects and stressed how important it is to give back now that he has the opportunity to.

"A big thing my parents taught me, is if and when god blesses you with the ability to give back, it is a responsibility of yours to do that. be a role model, be someone people can look up to... Some of the work that I have done has helped me just as much as it has helped other people... It is not about where you start, it is about where you finish."

Starks is a special player on the field but is also a special player off of it. Howie Roseman loves to talk about how they like adding good people to the locker room. Starks certainly fits the bill.

Jalen Hurts loves to say "Job's not done." Well for now it is. There will eventually be more work to do. They can start to have dreams of starting a dynasty. But for now, we can celebrate. The 2024 Eagles are Super Bowl Champions.

It was one of the most special seasons any Philly sports teams have ever had. As a city, we are used to being underdogs. We are used to having to scratch and claw. The first Super Bowl the Eagles won, they were the ultimate underdogs. They had a backup QB playing, along with several other backups, and they were facing down Tom Brady. The team literally wore underdog masks.

That was not the case this time. They might have been slight underdogs on the betting line, and people in the media picked the Chiefs to win. But everyone paying attention knew how good this team was, and they went out and proved it.

It was an absolute rout of the Chiefs to stop the 3-peat ensued. They made Patrick Mahomes have the worst game of his career. Jalen Hurts picked apart Spags' defense. By the 3rd quarter, the Chiefs were crying uncle, and fans were leaving their homes early to make sure they could get to Broad Street to celebrate.

Related: The Real Reason the Eagles Won Super Bowl LIX

We are not going to forget this anytime soon. It might go down as the greatest season in Philly Sports history. The biggest competition would be the 83 Sixers, but a lot of current fans, myself included, were not alive to witness that.

Now that it is over, we are about to parade down Broad Street again. But before we do that, let's look back on the magical season that it was. The biggest moments, the eye-popping plays, and the times we started to learn that this team was destined for greatness.

Eagles- Browns was close at the end. They were up just 4 points with under 2 to go. If they had to punt, things feasibly could have gone sideways. The Eagles did something some might call ill-advised, they took a deep shot. Traditional thought says you should run it there, run the clock, and force the Browns to use their final timeout. Or at least if you are going to throw it, go with something safe. Instead, they went deep, but it worked.

The perfect throw, the perfect catch, the perfect way to end the game. It was a good reminder that Hurts and Brown have an amazing deep-ball connection. Did going for that make sense in that moment? Not really. If it had failed, there would have been loads of complaints, but the fact it worked, and sealed the win, made it an amazing moment worthy of this list.

The Eagles completely outplayed the Jacksonville Jaguars. But some questionable decisions by Nick Sirianni, and an incredibly questionable fumble return for a TD, made it a 1 score game at the end. The Jaguars moved down the field to the 14-yard line and were a TD away from erasing the Eagles' lead. But then Nakobe Dean did this.

At this point, it was not yet completely clear how great the Eagles were. If this game had gone sideways, things could have played out much differently. But the Eagle survived, thanks to Nakobe Dean making an incredible play on the ball in the End Zone.

The Saints game was a bit of a mess. The defense played great, and the offense moved the ball, but the Eagles still trailed 12-7 late because Nick Sirianni routinely left points on the board, Jake Elliott missed a FG, and Jalen Hurts turned it over twice in or near FG range. Meaning that at the end of the game, with under 2 minutes to go, the Eagles needed a TD. Dallas Goedert did not score that TD, but he did set it up by doing this.

Saquon Barkley ran it in the very next play and then got a 2 point conversion for good measure after that. By the way, it didn't crack this list, but shout out to Reed Blankenship who truly sealed the win with a pick 2 plays later.

This whole list could have been Saquon moments. But I had to include some other players, so I cut it down to just 4 Saquon moments. The first of which is him breaking 2000. Should this be higher?

Maybe, considering only 8 other players have ever done it. But 4 of the 5 plays ahead of this were playoff moments, which makes them better, and the other is perhaps the greatest thing I have ever seen on a Football field, so Saquon making history somehow only came in 6th place. If you think that is crazy, I kind of agree with you, but I am stubborn enough to stick with it.

There are so many long Saquon runs that it is hard to decide which ones to pick. Given the time and moment, and the pure esthetic of the field being coated in snow, I went with this one.

At the time we thought it was the end of the game. Things got a bit tight from there, and we will get to a play that followed a bit later, but this run was a thing of beauty, it was true art. It also did end up being vital for the win given the Eagles only won by 6 points.

We have the Double Doink, but what about the Double Stuff arm? Dallas Goedert made Carrington Valentine his little brother when the Packers came to Philly for the Wild Card game.

First, he ran through him to break the initial tackle. Then he threw one stiff arm, only to throw another. The second one didn't even feel necessary, it was just mean. But you have to respect it. It was an exclamation point run, that put an exclamation point on that game.

Few people are harder to tackle in the open field than Derrick Henry. The only RB that might surpass him in that regard is on the Eagles. It would be even harder if you are a rookie corner, a position not exactly known for their tackling ability.

So when Cooper DeJean and Derrick Henry met in the open field this season, most people expected DeJean to be left looking like Wile E Coyote after a run-in with the Roadrunner. That was not the case. In fact in this case it was Derrick Henry laid out on his back.

Henry has 50 lbs on DeJean. This shouldn't have been how that interaction ended. But here we are.

When I think of this season, this memory comes up a ton in my mind. It is an "I Am Here" moment. It was DeJean declaring he is not just some rookie cornerback, he is the real deal. Mind you, it didn't make the list, but he did this same thing to Ja'Marr Chase earlier in the season too.

The guy just has a knack for making open-field tackles. I know the song says "Cooper DeJean is not a safety" but he sure does hit like one.

I had to be something to do with the amazing 55-23 win that sent them to the Super Bowl. The question is which play. One of the 3 fumbles? The game-sealing pick? 1 of Jalen Hurts 4 TDs?

To me, one play described the whole game. Even though it took place quite early, and things were still quite close for a bit afterward, the Saquon Barkey 60-yard TD really defined the difference between the Eagles and the Commanders in an instant.

The Commanders opened the game fighting tough and nail for every yard. They eventually got into the Red Zone, only to settle for a FG despite multiple 3rd Down conversions, and 2 4th down conversions. They did all of that, and then in a blink of an eye it was erased by Saquon Barkley just casually running for 60 yards on the Eagles' first offensive play of a game.

It set the tone for the whole game and made it clear these teams were just in different weight classes. One team was ready for the moment, and was team was not.

The Divisional Round Game was coming down to the wire. The Rams were moving the ball with ease in the snow. Even after the Saquon run we already talked about, the Eagles playoff life was on the line with the Rams in the Red Zone down 6 late in the game. The defense looked tired, and the snowy field clearly was hurting the ability to play the level of D they had all season long. That was when Jalen Carter put the team on his back.

He was not done there though. That set up 4th and long. But the Rams could certainly have converted that, and there were WRs open. But Jalen Carter stepped up again, putting pressure on Matthew Stafford, forcing the errant through, and effectively ending the game.

The Eagles went out on the field, knelt down, and advanced to the NFC Championship game. But who knows if that would have happened, or if the Eagles would even be Super Bowl-bound if Jalen Carter didn't take over on those 2 final plays.

The game was over at this point, which kept this play from being 1 or 2. But this was the moment everyone knew without a doubt that the Eagles were winning the Super Bowl. The defense had just forced a turnover on downs. The Eagles were up 27-0. People assumed the Eagles would run the clock out. Instead, they went for the dagger.

On the first play of the drive, Hurts threw a dot deep downfield to Devonta Smith. In an instant, the Eagles were up 34-0, and celebrations began. Any hope of a miracle comeback was dashed in an instant. 27-0 was a mountain to climb. 34-0 was impossible.

I still don't understand how Saquon Barkley pulled this off. A juke, into a spin move, into a backward hurdle, sticking the landing, then picking up several more yards. It is one of the most eye-popping plays in NFL history.

The image of him leaping over Jarrian Jones is now iconic. People have put it on shirts, I have it hanging up in my room. It is a singular moment that is hard to beat, just because it is probably the most impressive feat any of us have ever seen on a Football field. There was a time when normal hurdles were shocking, but they have almost become commonplace in the modern NFL. But Saquon found a way to make it interesting again.

I can not speak for others, but I don't think I am alone in saying this. The Cooper DeJean pick 6 is what I will think of when I look back on the Super Bowl and this season. It is the Philly Special, and it is Matt Stairs ripping one into the night.

10-0 was not exactly a comfortable lead. Patrick Mahomes had been down 10 in every single Super Bowl he ever won including 57 vs the Eagles. 17-0 is a different animal. Cooper DeJean getting his first-ever interception, on his Birthday, and in the Super Bowl, was great enough. But for him to then return that for a pick 6... it was when I realized this was real. The Eagles were winning this game.

It was preceded by the D-Line getting back-to-back sacks. Mahomes looked rattled. The DeJean pick proved it. The normally calm Mahomes was nowhere to be found. The Mahomes that was out there, had no hope of erasing a 17-0 deficit. This was not the man who had magic running through his veins.  He was a nervous wreck who was hearing footsteps and seeing ghosts.

The DeJean pick 6 will go down as one of the most memorable Eagles plays ever. It passes up the Patrick Robinson pick 6. It passes the many memorable Eric Allen pick 6s. Because while those were great, Dejean did his in the Super Bowl. Cooper DeJean can coast off that play with the fans in Philly for the rest of his life. In 9 months there will be a lot of babies being born who are named Cooper.