Cutting Justin Tucker
On Monday the Ravens announced longtime kicker Justin Tucker has been released. This did not come as a surprise, as Tucker seemed to finally hit the wall this past season, and the Ravens drafted kicker Tyler Loop in the draft a week ago. Time comes for us all. Justin Tucker just isn’t a great kicker anymore.
What, did you expect me to mention the other reason he got cut? Why? The Ravens said this cutting was for purely football reasons! I believe them.
This is the same franchise that holds Ray Lewis as an icon. The same franchise that did nothing about Ray Rice (despite knowing the truth before we found out) until the video went public and forced the NFL’s hand after major public outcry. The same franchise that literally just drafted Mike “Two sexual assault allegations” Green in the second round. The Ravens don’t give a fuck that Tucker was a gross pervert in the mid-2010’s to massage therapists! They probably knew about his proclivities well before any of us did. What they care about is the fact that he stunk ass kicking footballs last year, and now he has a bunch of negative media coverage to go along with it. If Justin Tucker was still Justin Fucking Tucker, he’d be a Raven right now. Maybe he’d get fined, maybe face a few games of suspension, but the Ravens wouldn’t have cut him. If Justin Tucker was not a gross creep pervert and was instead a saint, yet still had the abysmal season he had in 2024, I think there’s a pretty good chance he’d still be cut this season or at the very least the Ravens still draft/sign a free agent for competition. Ball > All.
This isn’t a Ravens problem, it’s a league problem. There is a direct relationship to how much a team will put up with if you can ball. Tyreek Hill has had double-digit domestic incidents at this stage and he’s still coveted and given friendly coverage. Tyreek Hill can ball. Deshaun Watson didn’t get the dumbest contract in NFL history because he sucked. He was a coveted asset despite everything because teams thought he was elite. If every team bidding for him during that process knew what Watson would actually turn out to be sewer waste as a football player too, nobody would have tried to sign him at all. So far the only player I can think of who was really good but still got cut for character reasons was Aaron Hernandez, a murderer. That’s the moral bar we are working with here.
I don’t doubt the possibility another team kicks the tires on Tucker like Tucker testing the boundaries of a masseuse with a little grope to the leg. If anyone thinks Tucker can still ball, it won’t matter that he’s under investigation for being a weirdo. I hope the investigation is enough poison to keep him out though, and I perceive the chances he plays again as slim. He’s old. He’s disgraced. He’s gross. He will probably stay quiet, not find a team this season unless someone has kicker injury problems, and quietly retire next year when it’s clear he’s not making a comeback.
Adios, weirdo. You were a good kicker, but you were also (allegedly), a pervert creep.
Casual reminder, this is the same league that somehow kept Adam “Pac Man” Jones until his retirement i 2019, after everything he’s done, EV-ER-Y-THINGGGGUHHH.
The weirdest storyline of last year was everyone rallying around Tyreek Hill for his interaction with that cop. Like, dude has a dozen domestic incidents, bodycam footage shows he instigated the whole thing, and yet this is our hero?
You should have seen how some people try to defend Mel Hall in baseball comments sections. Granted these are the minority compare to Tyreek Hill defenders.
The Tyreek arrest was complicated because even if Tyreek is a scumbag, he can still be a victim of racial profiling. These arent mutually exclusive things.
The Ravens can try to pretend that cutting Justin Tucker is solely a football decision, but if it was really a football decision then he would gotten more than a press release post, considering the impact and records he made to the team. You post something like that when your player has done some dumb shit. They didn’t even show his face! Take away the caes and negative media attention, the Ravens would’ve gone the whole nine yards celebrating Tucker, even in spite of his struggles last season.
He’s toxic, the Ravens know this and that’s why he’s cut. He being washed just gave them a copout to hide behind.
Great point! You’d think a future HoF candidate would get some kind of glowing “Thanks for everything” post…..this must be even worse than we know
THat’s a good point but also a separate thing really. They cut him for (mostly) football reasons. They downplayed it for more public relations reasons
I’m always suspicious of these civil lawsuits that come out a dozen years after the alleged incident. Tucker really doesn’t seem like that kind of guy, but I will withhold judgement until the case is dealt with.
Nobody is suing him as far as I can tell. Just allegations of misconduct and a reported history. I think he was just a creep at a bunch of massage places and the info finally came out to the wider public after some investigation.
You don’t get banned from MULTIPLE places without there being something behind it. This isn’t even the Watson “private appointment” angle, which can make it harder to verify; Tucker received these complaints at actual massage spas over the last decade plus. (And, hey, good on the management of those places if they’re willing to say that they don’t care who the customer is, limits and rules are going to be enforced.)
“Pro-bowler”? More like “Pro-bation!”
“There is a direct relationship to how much a team will put up with if you can ball.”
EXACTLY ! Deion Sanders NEVER has understood that teams tolerated his BS because he was an elite talent.
Even still he bounced around 5 teams because when his act wore thin he was shown the door.
Shedeur Sanders doesn’t get this either. If he was as talented as Maholmes, teams would have tolerated his diva act and he would have been a top 5 of the 1st round pick.
BUT combine mediocre ball skills AND “baggage” and he’s LUCKY he was even drafted at all.
We just need a bengals preditor to complete the cycle. The last lairbender
As a Pittsburgh fan you should know how to spell PREDATOR.
But I am not surprised you can’t.