The Old 22 on Your Ravens Scorecard

When Ravens fans gather to swap stories about that magical 2000 season, the names roll off the tongue like an old hymn — Ray, Goose, Jamal, Rod Woodson, Shannon Sharpe, even Trent Dilfer gets his due these days. But somewhere down the list, maybe he even escapes your thoughts, sits a slender corner out of “The U” who authored one of the most iconic plays in franchise history. Duane Starks. probably deserves better from our collective memory.

The Kid from Miami

The Ravens made Starks the 10th overall pick in the 1998 NFL Draft, plucking him from the University of Miami, where he had been a two-year starter at corner and a dangerous punt returner. At 5-10, 172 pounds, Starks was never going to overwhelm anyone physically. What he had was ball skills, quickness and a gambler’s confidence — the kind of swagger that Miami Beach Senior High produced by the busload back in the day.

He picked off five passes as a rookie in 1998 and five more in 1999, including his first career pick-six. But it was in 2000, when defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis moved him into a full-time starting role opposite rookie Chris McAlister, that Starks became a legitimate weapon on the greatest defense the league has ever seen.

2000: The Season and The Play

The numbers from that 2000 campaign are worth savoring. Starks started 15 games, intercepted 6 passes, returned them for 125 yards, and led the entire NFL with 23 passes defensed. Twenty-three! On a defense that surrendered a 16-game-record 165 points, Starks was the guy quarterbacks tested because they sure as heck weren’t throwing into Woodson’s zone or test McAlister. And time after time, he made them pay.

Then came January, and Starks turned it up another notch. Across four postseason games, he racked up 20 tackles, 6 passes defensed and 3 interceptions. In the AFC Championship Game out in Oakland — that hostile afternoon in The Black Hole — Starks picked off Jon Gruden’s Raiders twice in a 16-3 suffocation that punched Baltimore’s ticket to Tampa.

And then, Festivus Maximus.

Super Bowl XXXV, January 28, 2001, Raymond James Stadium. Ravens up 10-0 on the Giants in the third quarter, and Kerry Collins having the worst night of his professional life. Collins dropped back, Starks jumped the route, and 49 yards later he was standing in the end zone with the football and a 17-0 lead. It was the first defensive touchdown in Ravens Super Bowl history, and it lit the fuse on one of the wildest sequences the big game has ever seen — three touchdowns on three consecutive plays. Collins would finish 15-of-39 for 112 yards with four picks. Final: 34-7. Bedlam in Baltimore.

If you close your eyes, you can still see No. 22 streaking down the sideline. That’s a forever play, folks.

(Ok, open your eyes…)

Every now and then in the world of sports a player makes a play that defines his career. Sometimes it’s good; sometimes it’s bad; sometimes it’s epic. The latter describes the #Ravens @DStarks22 in SB XXXV. pic.twitter.com/H0QVNW4NNr

— Lombardi Party of One (@RSRLombardi) July 17, 2026

The Balance of the Baltimore Years

Starks gave the Ravens one more solid season in 2001 — 15 starts, 4 interceptions, 15 passes defensed and a career-best 63 tackles, plus another postseason pick in the Wild Card win over Miami. All told, his four years in purple produced 62 games, 20 interceptions, 56 passes defensed and a championship ring. That’s an interception every three games, for those of you keeping score at home.

But the Ravens were headed for their infamous post-Super Bowl salary cap purge, and Starks was among the casualties. He signed with the Arizona Cardinals after the 2001 season, and that’s where this story takes its melancholy turn.

Life After Baltimore

The desert was not kind to Duane. His 2002 season ended after 10 games with 2 interceptions. Injury wiped out his entire 2003 campaign. He bounced back respectably in 2004 — 15 games, 3 picks and a 41-yard interception return touchdown — but he was no longer the playmaker the world saw while in Charm City.

In March of 2005, the Cardinals shipped Starks and a fifth-round pick to New England for a third and a fifth, with Bill Belichick hoping the veteran could help replace the departed Ty Law. Instead, Starks struggled in coverage and lasted just seven games before a season-ending shoulder injury landed him on IR. The Patriots let him go, and he closed things out with a whimper in Oakland — 3 games, 3 tackles in 2006, a 2007 release before ever suiting up, and a brief re-signing in the spring of 2008 that ended with another release that May.

And that put a bow on his NFL career.

Tale of Two Chapters

Lay the two halves of Duane’s career side by side and the contrast is jarring:

As a Raven (1998-2001): 62 games, 43 starts, 20 interceptions, 56 passes defensed, 1 touchdown — plus 4 more picks and a Super Bowl pick-six in six playoff games, every one of them in purple and black.

After Baltimore (2002-2006): 35 games across three teams, 5 interceptions, 25 passes defensed, 1 touchdown — and zero playoff appearances.

Eighty percent of his career interceptions came in a Ravens uniform. Every single one of his postseason snaps came in a Ravens uniform. Injuries — the Achilles of so many undersized corners, pun intended — robbed him of his prime-adjacent years, and by his own admission his final seasons were plagued by them. Duane Starks was, in every way that matters, a Baltimore Raven who happened to play a few more years elsewhere.

Duane Starks is today’s Legend of the Gamepic.twitter.com/0xmxc1jl0Z

— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) October 26, 2025

Life After Football

So what’s the man behind the 49-yard sprint been up to since hanging up the cleats?

Starks settled back home in Florida, where he lives with his family. Philanthropy has been the throughline of his post-football life. Even before he entered the league, he founded the Starks Charitable Foundation, and he hosted a major charity event in Miami for over a decade. These days he lends his name and know-how to other foundations — showing up at events, consulting, helping them land sponsors and offering the kind of advice only a guy who’s been through the machine can give.

He’s also been active with The Trust, the NFL players’ post-career support organization, and he’s spoken candidly about the hard lessons of life after the game — including losing a chunk of his fortune when the economy cratered around the time of his retirement, and the discipline it took to fight his way back. That kind of honesty from a former first-rounder is rarer than a Kerry Collins completion on that January night in Tampa.

And, in perhaps the most fitting chapter of all, Starks got into coaching youth football, running his son’s middle school and youth league teams — passing down the lessons he learned from coaches like Marvin Lewis in Baltimore to the next generation. He’s watched his kids thrive in school, in track and on the football field, and he’ll tell you that’s his proudest work yet. He even sat for an interview in the acclaimed 2009 documentary “The U,” reflecting on his Hurricane days.

The Final Word

Duane Starks will never make Canton, and he’ll never be the first name mentioned when we toast that 2000 defense. But for four seasons he was a ballhawk on the best defense ever assembled, he led the NFL in passes defensed during a championship season, and he authored the pick-six that broke the Giants’ backs in the franchise’s first Super Bowl.

Around here, that ought to be enough to keep a man’s name alive. Here’s to No. 22.

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