If there were an obvious answer, it would have been explored by now.
Justin Tucker is not the sole reason the Baltimore Ravens are now 8-5 going into their bye week, but his struggles are a significant reason the Ravens are 8-5.
After the loss to the Steelers on Nov. 17, I asked two active coaches and one front office executive from other NFL teams what they would do if they were the Ravens. All three said in direct and plain terms that they would ride it out with Tucker. It’s more difficult to find someone in the sport who thinks the Ravens should move on from their legendary kicker than it is to find a brand that hasn’t emailed me in the last four days about a shopping discount.
Two more missed field goals and another missed extra point later, I can’t say I definitively agree with the experts more than I do the people who are yelling on social media.
There are so many contradicting thoughts within this conundrum.
What Tucker is offering at the moment (70.4 percent on field goals and now two missed extra points) is, without any question at all, unacceptable. The combined average for all NFL kickers this is season is 83.2 percent, so not only is Tucker a significantly below-average kicker, he’s actual bringing down the measurement of an average kicker! (All kickers not named Justin Tucker are making 84.5 percent of their field goals, for the record.)
The issue is that it’s hard to fathom that a kicker plucked off the street would manage to be even a league average kicker at this point. Despite what you were told after the first couple weeks of the season, this is one of the worst kicking seasons in recent memory. The league average is down nearly 2 percent from where it was last year. If the 83.2 percent figure holds, it would be lower than every year except one (81.6 percent in 2019) since 2012. And kicking tends to not get better as the weather gets colder.
The kickers who are available at this point are kickers who are (almost always) available at this point for a reason. Maybe they could be good. Recently signed off the street by the Jets, Anders Carlson has made all seven of his kicks in four games with two different teams so far this season. He also missed 13 field goals last year and a critical late kick in the Packers’ playoff loss to the 49ers.
Those are the types of kickers who are typically available. Maybe they can make the kicks! But can you particularly trust them with your Super Bowl hopes at stake? Not really!
The best thing for the Baltimore Ravens’ chances of winning the Super Bowl would be if Justin Tucker could return to a form even resembling Justin Tucker. It seems unlikely at this point, but it’s also difficult to call him “washed.” He hasn’t reached an age where he’s physically unable to kick. Distance isn’t the problem. It seems to be a mental issue. The experts seem to think that snapping out of a mental funk can happen at literally any moment.
Adding into the equation the more than $7 million of dead cap space facing the Ravens next year if Tucker isn’t their kicker, the math absolutely is not as simple as the “cut him bro he’s washed” camp wants it to be.
Is Falcons practice squad kicker Riley Patterson (for example) definitively better than whatever Justin Tucker is going to be? Let’s say hypothetically that Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker’s knee injury is worse than we thought, leading Tucker to sign with the Chiefs after the Ravens cut him. Could the Ravens be so confident that it wouldn’t matter if Tucker looked similar to his old self because Patterson was so good they could never regret such a move?
This is why I think John Harbaugh is telling the truth and the Ravens really will stick it out with Tucker. I just don’t think they can feel confident enough in the alternatives to risk moving on.
And it might well cost them their season. The season is rapidly coming to a close. There’s little time for Tucker to get back on the right track. The Ravens’ faith in Tucker (to be fair, one of the greatest players in franchise history) could very well cost them. But I understand why it might just have to be the answer.
I still think it isn’t illogical to hold another kicker on the practice squad. If at some point things bottom out and the Ravens feel like they absolutely can’t keep trotting Tucker out, it doesn’t seem like it could hurt to have a backup option who had spent some time working with the long snapper and holder. That’s what the Falcons are doing with Patterson at the moment because Younghoe Koo has been nearly as bad as Tucker. That situation might take Patterson out of the equation soon, anyway.
Myself, I’d even activate that practice squad kicker for each game. If Tucker misses more kicks, I’d let the other kicker have a try. That’s where we are.
Pretending like any of this is simple or easy is nonsense. This is unfathomably difficult for all parties involved. But it can’t be ignored either.
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