Justin Tucker is widely viewed as the greatest kicker in league history. However, if you’ve only ever watched him through the first three weeks of the 2024 season, you’d be scratching your head at that type of claim. Through three games, Tucker is just 5 of 8 on field goal attempts and has missed at least one field goal in every game thus far, including a miss from 48 yards out in the fourth quarter of the Baltimore Ravens victory over the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday.
After fending off a late rally from Dallas and securing the win, the broadcast showed John Harbaugh and Tucker talking on the sideline.
“From a conversation standpoint, we’re pretty close,” Harbaugh told reporters Monday of his postgame conversation with Tucker. “We’ve been together for a long time and had a lot of conversations. We know each other, so it’s just two guys talking about where we’re at and just love the guy, respect him. He’s everything you want in a player and a friend, so that was really the basis of that.”
That said, Harbaugh did acknowledge Tucker’s struggles through the early goings of this season and added that it is a “technique issue” for the 34-year-old kicker.
“For Justin, it’s just a technique issue right now that he’s working through,” he said of his struggles. “I think he’s got a technique thing going on, and he’ll work through it. He knows exactly what it is and just needs to smooth it back out. I’m very confident that he will.”
For his career, Tucker has connected on 89.7% of his field goals in 198 regular season games. Last year, however, he was sitting around 86.5% on his kicks and was just 1-of-5 from 50 yards out or more.
Tucker will get an opportunity to turn the corner in Week 4 when Baltimore hosts a “Sunday Night Football” matchup with the Buffalo Bills.
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Author: Tyler Sullivan
September 23, 2024 | 4:15 pm
