Longtime Ravens Kicker Defends Justin Tucker

The Baltimore Ravens are facing a rare question at kicker.

Sept 17, 2006; Baltimore, MD, USA; Baltimore Ravens kicker (3) Matt Stover kicks a field goal in the first quarter against the Oakland Raiders at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, MD. Stover kicked four field goals against the Oakland Raiders. Mandatory Credit: James Lang-Imagn Images Copyright © James Lang / James Lang-Imagn Images

If anyone can understand what Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker is going through right now, then one of his predecessors may be the one.

Longtime Ravens kicker Matt Stover, who played in Baltimore from 1996-2008, was similarly reliable, making 84.7 percent of his field goals over his 13 years in purple and black. It wasn't always that way, though, as he made just 75.9 percent of his kicks from 1996-1998. At one point, Ravens head coach Brian Billick approached him on the sideline just to ask if he could make the next kick.

With some hard work, though, Stover got back on track and started kicking like his old self, if not better.

“I had to work through a lot. I had to overcome bad performance. It’s part of the game,” Stover told the Baltimore Sun's Brian Wacker. “The desire to want that ball is the No. 1 trait a kicker has to have. I always worked myself back into that mode after I had a poor performance. It didn’t make that next kick easy. In fact, it was a bit more difficult. But I wasn’t running from it. I jumped right back into the fire, and that’s how I handled it emotionally.

Now over 25 years after Stover's slump, Tucker is going through one of his own. The future Hall of Fame kicker has already missed six field goals and an extra point this season, all of them going wide left. He missed two field goals in the first quarter Sunday's loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, which put the Ravens in an early hole that they never dug out of.

As someone who's gone through this before, Stover believes that Tucker will figure it out sooner rather than later.

“Justin has set a standard that’s never been seen in the NFL," Stover said. "Who am I to say he’s not going to work out of it? Of course he is.”

Stover, the last active member of the original Cleveland Browns franchise before his retirement in 2011, added in an appearance on Glenn Clark Radio that he doesn't see any problems with the rest of the field goal unit, including holder Jordan Stout and long snapper Nick Moore.

Are there issues with the Ravens FG operation? @Matt3Stover: "I don't see it. Look at the LS, [Nick Moore] snaps it over the spot, means the kicker never loses sight of the ball... It's laces in front, holder puts it right down. I'd say it looks the same 95% of the time."

— Glenn Clark (@GlennClarkRadio) November 19, 2024

No one doubts that Tucker has the ability to bounce back, but it's a matter of putting all the pieces together once again.

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