What can the Ravens do about kicker Justin Tucker’s ongoing struggles?

What do you do when a great at his position suddenly becomes one of the worst players in the league?

That’s the conundrum facing the Baltimore Ravens, who have a legend in kicker Justin Tucker but also someone who missed the NFL’s 10 worst kicks this season, including three in Baltimore’s 24-19 loss to the Eagles on Sunday. Two weeks earlier, he missed two field goals in a two-point loss to the Steelers.

The 35-year-old Tucker is considered the second-most accurate field goal kicker in NFL history (89%) and also the second-most inaccurate kicker in the league this season (70%).

Instead of fighting for the AFC’s top seed, the Ravens are now 8-5 and the sixth seed in the playoffs. Close losses with missed shots pose tough questions for coach John Harbaugh about a fan favorite.

“We worked through it. You work through it with every single player,” Harbaugh said after Sunday’s loss. “Everything you do is help the guys succeed. That’s what we’re going to do. If you ask me, ‘Are we going to move past Justin Tucker?’ I don’t really plan on doing that at the moment. But he’ll tell you, he’ll tell you he has to do kicks because he can Just think, if you look at Justin Tucker’s story, you’d have to say he’s capable of it.

Tucker has made the Pro Bowl the last five years, and just two seasons ago he led the NFL in field goals made. But he has seen a steady decline, going 1-for-5 on field goals of 50 yards or longer last season, and has been significantly worse this year. He missed a career-high eight field goals and also missed two extra points, the most he had missed in the last three years combined.

“As simple as I can put it, I missed the kicks and I’ll leave it at that,” Tucker said after Sunday’s loss. “I just left the points out. I feel like I cost us this point, but it doesn’t really benefit anyone to think about it. The only thing we can do – what I can do – is just keep going.” Work, move forward, take one kick at a time. I hate that I had to have the same conversation over the course of this season, but that comes with the territory of this job description. The kicks are either good or they aren’t, and today I didn’t do a good enough job to help our team win the football game.

His continued struggles have the Ravens considering their unpleasant options. They reached the AFC Championship Game last season and had even higher hopes for 2024, but Tucker is actively limiting that success. They could cite an injury and place him on injured reserve. That’s what the Jets did with veteran Greg Zuerlein, the only kicker in the league with a lower field goal success rate.

You could sign a kicker for the training group. This allowed the rookie to get used to Baltimore’s snapper and holder in practice, making the transition easier if the Ravens wanted to make Tucker inactive in a future game. That would allow them to bench Tucker without completely ruling him out, and do so at minimal cost to the roster. He no longer has guaranteed money in his contract, but his release would result in $7 million in dead money being counted against Baltimore’s 2025 salary cap.

No one is a harsher critic of Tucker than himself, and he has been open about how tough his struggles were, especially when they directly contributed to a narrow loss for the Ravens.

“At the moment, right after the game, it’s obviously pretty emotional for me,” he said. “Every time we win we come into the locker room and we all feel great. And every time we lose – especially for me, considering my performance today just wasn’t up to our standard – it’s devastating. But in the end.” Right now my feelings don’t matter. What matters is getting back to work and doing everything I can to help this football team win games.

Tucker isn’t the first elite kicker to struggle at the end of his career. Adam Vinatieri, the NFL’s career field goal leader, shot just 68% in his senior year and scored seven goals with the Colts in 2019 at age 47. Jason Elam shot 63% in his senior year and scored seven goals with the Falcons in 2009 at age 39. This is nothing new: Jan Stenerud, now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, shot 57% in his senior year and missed in old age 11 field goals 43 with the Vikings in 1985.

The Ravens are now in their bye week and return with a fairly easy game in Week 15 against the Giants, but two of their last three games are against the AFC playoff contenders Steelers and Texans, games that could easily come down to a run or missed kick. If the season ended today, the Ravens would open the playoffs in Pittsburgh, where Tucker missed two field goals in an 18-16 loss in Week 11. In this game, Steelers kicker Chris Boswell won 6:6.

Similar to Harbaugh, Baltimore’s veterans have expressed their support for Tucker, knowing who he has been for the franchise and who he can still develop. That’s what tight end Mark Andrews said after Sunday’s loss when asked if he said anything directly to Tucker.

“He knows it. But stay true to yourself and keep going, and don’t let anything get you down, don’t let anyone get you down, and just know that we all have something in this locker room, this team, this organization “We’re all here for a reason,” Andrews said. “He’s about the most professional vet you can get, so he’s just there to support us.”

“He will do it. Just believe.”

Greg Auman is an NFL reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade reporting on it privateer for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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