It sure feels like the confidence of Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker isn’t what it used to be but it appears there’s still plenty of leg. Only kickers know what it’s like to be a kicker. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the struggles of The GOAT and what the Ravens are going to do about it to navigate a stretch run and Super Bowl push with a suddenly unreliable kicker.
Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the struggles of Ravens kicker Justin Tucker, who has missed critical field goals in recent games, contributing to the team’s 8-5 record. Tucker’s current 70% success rate is one of the worst in the league. Jones compared Tucker’s situation to a high-risk stock market, noting the complexity of finding a better replacement mid-season. Despite Tucker’s decline, his track record and potential to still make long kicks were highlighted. The conversation also touched on the emotional and practical challenges of replacing Tucker, emphasizing the need for a balanced approach.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Justin Tucker, special teams, kicking issues, Ravens struggles, Hall of Fame, field goal misses, confidence level, kicker competition, offseason plans, game impact, emotional decision, practical challenges, kicker alternatives, Ravens playoffs, kicker track record
SPEAKERS
Luke Jones, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:02
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore and Baltimore. Positive.com make sure you’re setting a spot on the dial and subscribing and clicking. And we got plenty of football ahead for everyone. Here it is by week, but I’m gonna throw down a couple of crab cakes this week. We’re gonna go to a couple of my favorite places. We’re gonna be a CoCo gonna be at Cocos on Wednesday afternoon. All of our holiday shows are one till four. Just lunchtime stop by. We have great guests, good people, stopping by on Wednesday at Cocos in laraville. On Thursday, we’ll be at the BMA, the Baltimore Museum of Art at at Gertrude, right in the lobby. If you’ve never been to the BMA, it’s free to get in. It’s awesome. It’s a great part of town as well, down by Hopkins. So come on down. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland have Raven scratch offs to give away for the holidays. Next week, we’re going to be doing the show back down at fait leaves at Lexington market. And then on Christmas week, or the week before Christmas, I should say, we’ll be to meet you on Tuesday, and then on on Wednesday at Costas, on the 18th, to wrap things up a week before Christmas. All the brought to you by Jiffy Lube, multi care, as well also our 26th anniversary oyster Fest in progress. Our friends at curio wellness, I have my curio shirt on right now, as well as our friends at at Liberty pure solutions and I have a bottle of water around here somewhere, 800 clean water. They keep my water clean. And Doug Workman, the good folks there at Liberty, pure solutions. Can take care of your well water as well. I don’t know, take care of the kicking game. Special teams were not special. Luke Jones joins us now. He is Baltimore Luke. He follows all things Ravens. He’s gonna have a nice little easy week this week, unless the Orioles go out and sign one Soto and Corbin burns before the end of the week and spend that $800 million at this burning a hole in their pocket. Mr. Rubenstein, I’m not holding my breath on that. Although we have had some baseball conversations this week, we’ll get into some football this week as well. Even though the Ravens do not play. I don’t know what you know. Operation number one is when you’re eight and five, Luke in the on the back end of this Eagles game, and the loss to them and what it represents, and the four games that are left and Christmas Day and the weird scheduling and all that, but the kicking thing hasn’t been right, the special teams haven’t been right. You and I have put more you go back into our archives the last 1012, weeks, more conversations about their special teams and special teams problems, and I always take it back, and Harbaugh hates this the most, but special teams are his thing, and I would think that this is going to bother him during during this week. And I don’t know what you say to a 35 year old kicker is going to the Hall of Fame about aim a little bit more toward the middle, quit missing wide left, or whatever the operation would be that John Harbaugh would know, but we’re going to talk a lot about Justin Tucker and the kicking around here
Luke Jones 02:44
we have been and we’ll continue to talk about it, because it’s a mess. I mean, you’re you just said it. You’re talking about someone who’s been talked about, not just as the Hall of Fame kicker, but as quite possibly the greatest kicker of all time. And the caveat with that was always you have to do it for a really long time, right? And that longevity is such a challenging piece to this. I was trying to, you know, before I we began our conversation, I was trying to figure out ways to contextualize this and maybe the best one I’ve come up with at this point, and it’s not a perfect comparison, but think of how your typical reliever is in baseball, right? You’ll have some guys who will have some really good years. You might even have a guy that pitches so well he he finds him selling an all star team, you know? Maybe, maybe he’s on a bad team and and he’s that team’s lone rep. But we’ve seen those instances. And then you’ll see that guy stinks for a year or two, and then he’s good again, and then he has another meh here. It’s very up and down. We always joke about how relief pitching is kind of like high risk stock market kind of activity where, you know the things, things will look good, and things look not so good. I mean that that’s generally speaking, how most kickers are over the course of time and and obviously you go back decades and decades and decades ago. Justin Tucker making 70% 70% was great once upon a time, right? It’s not in today’s day and age. It’s one of the worst percentages in football this year. And when you talk about Sunday’s game, as much as we can talk about the offensive line not being very good, Lamar Jackson not being at his best, the defense, you know that the run defense, dam breaking in the fourth quarter. Other special teams issues that we’ll get into, you know, tylen Wallace or penalties that weren’t an issue Sunday, but have been an issue in that phase over the course of the season. You still come back to the fact that your kicker, who is supposed to be on his way to the Hall of Fame is supposed to be maybe the greatest of all time, is making a lot of money, and that’s a complicated, complicated element to this. You know, there are salad. Recap ramifications to just saying, Oh, well, Justin Tucker stinks. Get rid of them. He’s a major problem. He cost them seven points on Sunday. I don’t want to look at it so simplistically to think, to just look at the final score, because the Ravens scored a Garbage Time touchdown, and if he makes those field goals, the game is different. You know, there’s the butterfly effect that everything in the sequence of events, you know, is going to impact what happens after that. But he cost him seven points, and you look at their previous four losses this year, he missed a field going all of them, you know. So this has been a major, major, major problem. This isn’t just, ah, he scuffling a little bit. He’s been bad. He’s been one of the worst kickers in the league this year. And when you’re talking about someone that the organization, the city, boos aside during the game on Sunday, and I get that fans are frustrated because this is a big game, and you got to make kicks in big games. Justin Tucker is the first to tell you that, but you’re talking about someone who there’s such an affinity for, for what he’s done and what he’s meant, and how many games he’s won for the Ravens in the past. And you go back to post Super Bowl 47 Joe Flacco, era of ravens offense, where Justin Tucker was, you know, he won a couple team MVPs because of, you know, kind of where that team was at that point in time. By the way, I
Nestor Aparicio 06:19
want to say this on behalf of my royal farms friends, because I could hold up my little chicken and do chicken Palooza and all that. He’s also the highest profile athlete in the city, maybe this century. Ray Lewis aside. I mean, Ed Reed gets some commercials and he’s around a little bit. Ray is sort of evaporated, you know what? I mean, Flacco shows up in cold jerseys. They the heroes of Birdland, right? The Orioles have no heroes. They have, they have, they have nothing. They have. Adam Jones, maybe you may be but he didn’t get royal farms endorsements. Justin Tucker’s on my television every day, in season, out of season, on billboards because of the money royal farms spends on on him. Quite frankly, Royal Farms has put him over in a way that I don’t know. M T Bank would have put him over like but he is hyper, famous for a being a football player, being one that doesn’t tackle or it doesn’t throw the ball. He is, you mentioned, affinity for him and where he is, part of that is the marketing part of him that’s never gone away. It doesn’t take the off season off he, you know, he’s marketed himself into being incredibly famous for a kicker here, right? Because of the endorsements and all that, that when he walks the streets, people really know who he is, in a way that they didn’t know who Jim O’Brien or Tony Lennard was, you
Luke Jones 07:42
know, right? But, but he’s in that position because of how great he’s been, right? Royal farms wanted him because he kicked them into the AFC Championship as a rookie and and had some of these unbelievable seasons,
Nestor Aparicio 07:54
even though he drinks Starbucks coffee, right? So, so. But
Luke Jones 07:59
to look at this through the lens of, you know, going back to the relief you know the baseball, you know pitcher. You know the relief pitcher analogy. I mean, this is a guy who’s been Mariano Rivera, and suddenly he’s blowing saves left and right. So how do you operate there? And look, I will. I’m not going to sit here and say that Justin Tucker unconditionally, just needs to be sent out there no questions asked the rest of the year either. But it’s also not as simple as well, go bring someone else who, like, legitimately, who. Well, I
Nestor Aparicio 08:34
would say today’s your first day. We’re talking like this. Well, you and I, couple weeks ago, we
Luke Jones 08:38
were talking about this, but, but it’s ratcheting up because it’s not getting any better. I mean, he missed, well, that’s
Nestor Aparicio 08:43
what I mean, look, I’ve given him the benefit of the doubt, the benefit of the doubt, the benefit of the doubt at this point, I think we this particular game. This is a little bit of a Waterloo moment to say, all right, is it going to get better? And if it’s not, what are we going to do about well,
Luke Jones 09:01
and that’s the problem. Look, this is the same thing applies with with starting pitcher or ACE aces. You know, Ace Ace, number one starters in baseball, starting quarterbacks there. There aren’t 32 great kickers in the league. There aren’t 32 good kickers in the league. Go look at some of the teams, even some good teams that have changed kickers, and in recent years, sometimes change kickers multiple times because they’re trying to figure it out. The point here is, I’m not going to sit here and say that I have the knowledge to say that there isn’t a kicker out there right now that could do that. Couldn’t you know that that could be an upgrade over Justin Tucker, as he’s currently, you know his current state? Well, you’re
Nestor Aparicio 09:46
not getting guys on the street to kick 53 yarders. That’s part of it also is that he’s so uniquely weird that 53 you just send them in there. You don’t think about it anymore. Not like is, is it matched over is, is the limit 48 on him? Feeling good about sending him out there. There was never a point. And this really speaks to hardball too. Like after Billy kind of horrible and had to think about this. You just send him out there, you send him out there, and he makes the kick most of the time. That’s over with. I don’t, I think that level of confidence with 53 yards with him is over with. And then, to your point, you don’t just find 53 yard field goal guys out on the street. That’s that’s a really, really difficult thing to do over the history of the league, and I know guys have gotten better at it, and science and sports science and all and the balls and all the thing that go into it, but you’re not gonna, you’re not gonna make your team better by getting rid of Justin Tucker right now,
Luke Jones 10:38
I’ll say that in terms of, look, could they, could they lock their way into that, sure? I mean, Justin Tucker was undrafted in 2012 right? I mean, it’s not as though they spent a fourth round pick on them or something like that. I mean, who was it years ago, the Bucks spent a second round pick on a kicker, and he was terrible, right? I mean, so teams do that. I mean, years and years ago, the Raiders used the first round pick on Sebastian Janikowski, which he ended up having a great career. What really worth the first round pick?
Nestor Aparicio 11:09
What does she drafted? Graham Cano every time I see him out there, I think him out at the barn with me. But, I mean, you know, drafting a kicker around here something we ain’t talked about in just before my wife had cancer, for crying out loud, punters that
Luke Jones 11:23
punters, they’ve done done that with. I mean, Jordan stout was a fourth round pick, but, you know, on the kicking side, it’s, you know, this is tricky, from the standpoint of saying, all right, if you want to move on from Justin Tucker, if you want to cut them, who are you bringing in? And again, that’s a genuine question, Who out there again? Kade York was a fourth round pick of the browns. What? Three years ago, two years ago, he’s bounced around, right? I mean, he got, he was cut by the commanders after week one because he missed two field goals, and that was after they had acquired him, you know, I and it was a conditional seventh round pick, let me be clear about that. But so well,
Nestor Aparicio 12:06
Billy doesn’t have happened, because Steve houseke Didn’t work out, right? I mean, but then he was a, he was a cast off from the Cowboys, when he missed a kick, we’re like, Well, you know, he misses kicks, that’s
Luke Jones 12:15
what kick, right? And, and again, I am not saying that it’s statistically impossible that the Ravens could bring someone in and that person you know that that kicker wouldn’t do a better job than what Justin Tucker is currently doing. However, as much as you’re trying to make these decisions, you’re basing it off of track record, right? You don’t know. You truly don’t know how anyone is going to do from the moment you sign them, right? That’s unknown. It’s the future. It’s unknown. So you look at Justin Tucker’s track record, and it’s a Hall of Fame resume up until this season, and anyone else that you’re bringing in at this point, whether it’s some guy that kicked in the UFL this past spring, or someone that was a draft pick of some team or or some 39 year old guy that maybe is has kept himself in shape, right? So someone that’s like when Matt Stover joined the Colts in 2009 some scenario like that. Again, I’m not saying that there aren’t individuals or names out there that you could throw out, throw into that mix, but is your confidence level just genuinely going to be any more you know any better than what you’re hoping Justin Tucker can do it, which is get himself back on track. That’s where this is tricky. Look, if the conversation is for next spring and summer, knowing how much money Tucker makes, knowing he’s going to be 36 years old next year, knowing he’s coming off of this season, by all means, go out and find the next Justin Tucker to come in and compete with them and beat them out in August, if it comes to that. But that’s not helping you win a Super Bowl in the here and now. So what do you do? I I’m fine if you say the Ravens bring in some kicker, you know, bring in three kickers and take a look at what they’re doing and seeing if you really have the kind of discerning eye, if Randy Brown and Chris Horton and John Harbaugh, and bring in Jerry Rosberg as a consultant for the week, if you want to, if you want to look at kickers, and you definitively see that there’s someone that looks markedly better than what Justin Tucker looks in a workout setting, in a practice setting, as he’s trying to get himself right, sure, but you’re really going to tell me that you’re having any more confidence in that guy than you know, the the hope of trying to get Justin Tucker straightened out again, it’s not ideal. It’s just not so I’m empathetic isn’t the right word, because this is a business, and he’s failing at his job, and he’s failing pretty miserably right now. But if you’re the ravens, I think it’s way easier said than done to just say cut them and bring someone else in. Now. Do you give them one more game? And if he goes up to the Meadowlands and misses two field goals and an extra point. Point there, do you make up an injury and put them on IR and sign someone? Because you just have to try someone different in the same way that, you know, when the Ravens got to the point with Tony banks in 2000 where they just said, Tony, we got to let Trent try to do something here. You know, I don’t think Brian Billick had, you could speak to this better than I could Nestor. I don’t think Brian Billick had this great degree of confidence in Trent Dilfer at that point in time, but he knew he had a great degree. Did
15:24
you COVID? To Trent do for what he wanted? The old Tony Bates could do it
Luke Jones 15:27
right, right? Like you just had to do something different. And again, I’ll hear that, but to sit here with any conviction as someone who is doing this for a living and talking about this and trying to talk about this intelligently and coherently. I can’t, I can’t sit here and just start naming kickers that are on the free agent market right now, or some teams practice about and say, yes, go sign that guy. He’s at the Super Bowl on the line in Buffalo in January, we need a Friday one yard field goal.
Nestor Aparicio 16:03
Do I want Justin Tucker to be that guy, or some guy I’ve never heard of? I don’t know. The idea is probably going to go down with the ship with Justin Tucker at this point. You know, like, where
Luke Jones 16:11
it’s, it’s just so tough, but, but how much longer can you keep saying that it’s, this is not good. And again, you you look at this through the lens of seven and a half million dollars in dead money on the cap next year, if you cut them. So it’s not great. I mean, it really isn’t as much as
Nestor Aparicio 16:32
much money is he making, by the way. And and bring it into focus against other what people, oh,
Luke Jones 16:38
he’s been the highest paid, or right there with the highest paid kickers for a long time as as he’s deserved to be. I mean, again, I haven’t
Nestor Aparicio 16:44
paid attention to his money, quite frankly, because it’s just sort of like, you know, his money, little thing that he does and like, like, I don’t, I’ve never paid attention to think that they overpay him or underpay him. I know he has to be making the most amount of money. You know. I know royal Farms is paying him a fortune. You know, I know he’s put himself into that position to be elitely paid in all of that. I just want to say this about Tucker, because people ask me about him. They see pictures of me with him, and they know that I know him. And if I bumped into him in Patterson Park, he’d say, Hi Nestor, and I’d say Hi Justin. I’d say hello to his wife. You know, we’ve had meals together, like all of that. I don’t want to say, because I don’t want to be purgative of, you know, the morning after he misses kicks or whatever, or about my personal feelings for him or whatever, I would just say, this is a reporter. If you call it cocky, it’s not nice. I’ve been called cocky in my lifetime, and been shot out of my mountain at various points as well. But arrogant, cocky, very confident cock, sure, self assured, um, what? Whatever, all of those synonyms would be, confidence and his ability to say, I’m better than you, and I’ll go, I’ll go prove it. That’s Justin Tucker, I mean. And that’s him. If you know him, you know what I mean a little bit. There were guys when he was a kid, who were turned off by him, because he was so sure of himself and so confident. And if there’s anything I think about with him, what I call it arrogance, cocky when I say he’s full of himself, when I say he’s stuck up or whatever, he’s confident. He’s very, very confident. One time, young man, he’s no longer old like me. Now, the confidence thing being shot is the weirdest, the body language, all of that. Had 1000 conversations with Justin Tucker back when I was a real media guy, when I’m not really a media guy anymore because of the lack of integrity of the whole operation out there, in a general sense. But when it comes to Justin Tucker, confidence, confidence and more confidence. And if that wanes, and I’m a pretty confident person myself, I know in the days when I wake up and I’m not feeling myself, there’s no way to be myself. And I would say the confidence level for him, I don’t know where that is, but boy, they better get that back. I mean, whether it’s sports psychologist, wherever it is, Justin Tucker, who’s one of and I’ll say this out loud to be a prick, one of the cockiest dudes I’ve ever met in my life, in any walk of life in any cockier than Chad Steele, and he’s not six foot eight, so like when I think of Justin Tucker, of what’s going to work for him, him walking into the room and being the peacock and being the man and being the dude is a big part of his makeup. And I don’t know how tank kicks and seeing him suck on the sidelines, seeing these post game press conferences that sort of don’t exude what I knew Justin when Justin Tucker was blowing on his horn and telling me to get out of the locker room at 1101, every week or whatever that time was, I had to leave. He’s pretty confident, man. I haven’t seen Justin Tucker in three years. I see him on television. I. See him drinking Starbucks coffee on the street and pictures people put up in my royal farm stuff, but I I don’t see the same makeup of him when he’s missing kicks. And I don’t know whether it’s the operation, the ball, the spin, he misses. You know, Sam Cook, I don’t, I don’t know, but it’s not like his legs. No good. You
Luke Jones 20:24
know what? I
Nestor Aparicio 20:24
mean. He’s not short the way Matt Stover was at the end. He has the ability to do this. He has the physical ability to do this. And I know John Harbaugh knows that Randy Brown knows that people who love him think that of him, people who observe him like me would observe that once the confidence is gone, from a psychological standpoint, it’s very, very tricky. Michael Jordan have confidence, even when he came back and played, when he was too old to beat to play, he had confidence and had belief that that he was going to make it and do it, and he was the best ever. That’s a really weird spot to be the best ever and not be any good at it anymore, and to have the confidence level be shaken, because he can still do this. To your point, I mean, look, I’ll just say that he can kick the ball 60 yards. He can, yeah,
Luke Jones 21:12
I mean, I don’t think it’s physical in the sense that that is range is so drastically diminished. Now, you know, Does, does he have the ability, you know, the talent, to kick a 66 yard field goal anymore? Okay, maybe not, but he’s not coming up short on 47 yards right. He’s missing it wide left. You know, he missed the 53 yard or wide right, which to me, that was seeing him miss wide right. Then is like, Oh no, when it continues to be wide left, you still can kind of hold on to the idea of, okay, there’s some kind of mechanical tweak here that he’s just not that that’s, you know, the muscle memory is not setting in, in the way that a great athlete relies on it or depends on it to do, you know, to for that to happen. But you know, your confidence comment, and regardless of how it’s portrayed. You know, some guys show exude confidence or cockiness or what, however you want to describe it, more than others. What successful pro athlete isn’t confident, right? I mean, you’re not going to be successful in that highly competitive arena if you’re not confident. So, yeah. Or
Nestor Aparicio 22:19
Joe Flacco once said to me over in ICE T up in Philadelphia, why would you even think that way? Right?
Luke Jones 22:23
Exactly. So, so, so how, how could you be continue to remain your most confident version of yourself when you’ve missed and struggled as much as he has? But again, this is all about whenever you’re making a decision here, whether you’re going to stick with Justin Tucker, whether you’re going to go out and sign someone else, whether you’re going to bring in kick the tires on a couple guys over the course of the week, you know, to just to see what it looks like. And maybe part of that is I one way or the other, I don’t know, does do you do that? And Justin Tucker goes further in the tank? Or is that something that is a wake up call that helps dig himself out of this? I don’t know. Right? I mean, everyone responds to your point. There’s a sports psychology element to this, in the same way that people talked about this with Chuck knob lock when he couldn’t throw the ball the first base, Right? Steve sacks. Steve sacks, the blast. I mean, there have been even really great players in different sports who go through something like this. This, we’ve seen guys suddenly who were really good free throw shooters suddenly can’t make free throws, and go through stretches. And sometimes it’s permanent, and sometimes it’s a bad year, or a bad couple months, or a bad couple weeks, and then you get yourself back on track. So that’s where, again, you’re looking at this from the Ravens perspective, and saying, Look, we get it Justin Tucker is not doing the job the way we need them to, but we also have 11 prior seasons of having the utmost confidence in him doing this job better than anyone on Earth. So how where do we draw the line between what he’s doing right now and looking at the full blown track record recognizing that he’s 35 and not 45 This isn’t Matt Stover who didn’t have the leg to make kicks beyond 45 yards at the end of his career in Baltimore. And I don’t say that with any any knock on that he was just at the end of his career, right in the same way that, you know, Father times undefeated for anyone in that arena, but every whatever decision you make is going to be judged on what happens from this point on, and that’s an unknown for anyone you bring in. So you’re continuing to look at this through the lens of, Okay, bring in Cade York, or kicker X, and he might have a really good workout. That’s not the same thing as kicking in that invite in Buffalo in the arena, right with the game on the line. I saw that
Nestor Aparicio 24:46
40 Niners kicker trying to make a field goal in the second quarter on Sunday night in the snow. And I’m like, you know, just
Luke Jones 24:52
there aren’t 32 great kickers out there, right? I mean, so there aren’t 32 so that tells you, right now, there are kickers in the league right now that have jobs. Who aren’t good enough that if you caught Justin Tucker’s daughter Monday morning, right Justin Tucker’s one of them right now, let’s be clear, hasn’t been good enough. But who are these kickers that you want, that you’re excited about bringing in, that you’re going to definitively say, yes, that guy is absolutely better than what this current version of Justin Tucker is. I don’t know that. And again, this is not me saying with 100% conviction, no questions asked, Justin Tucker is going to continue to be my kicker, and I’m going to go down with the ship. But there’s not a good alternative here, right? This is, this is a problem. This is a problem, no matter how you slice it. And I just you can bring in player X kicker X, fine. I don’t have much confidence in that guy making kicks right now, either. So it’s just it’s not good because you have this offense that Sunday aside, and you know, it’s been choppy the last few weeks, no question. But it’s still an offense that has an MVP quarterback and has the talent that it has, and absolutely has the capability to play deep into January, you have a defense that is not great by any stretch of the imagination, but the last three weeks have taken steps in the right direction, in a better direction than where it had been. But you have an absolute mess with your field goal kicker, you have a special teams operation, collectively across the board, that makes way too many mistakes. Tylen Wallace on Sunday, they’ve had penalty issues. Not so much Sunday, but generally speaking, they’ve had a lot of penalties in the special teams phases. You have Jordan stout, who’s, relatively speaking, been their bright spot on special teams, did not have a great day on Sunday, you know, didn’t punt the ball particularly well. We talk about this, I mean, and there have been times over the years where I think the Ravens have placed too much emphasis on special teams, quite frankly, to the detriment of the back end of the roster, where they didn’t have necessarily the best depth at some offensive or defensive positions because they wanted to have better special teams players. So that being said, Whatever value it’s worth, you know, whatever percentage or fraction you know it’s it’s not truly three phases that are equal in terms of importance. We know that. We know offense and defense are much more important than special teams, but whatever percentage you want to put into that, it’s hurting them, and it’s hurting them in close games. I mean, it’s not as though the Ravens have lost these five games by multiple scores, right? It’s not like they they’re losing in blowout fashion. They’re losing by one score. You know, Sunday’s game. Okay, they were down two scores until the Garbage Time touchdown. But if Justin Tucker makes those fuel, makes those kicks, then that’s a way different game in the fourth quarter, right? We’re having a way different conversation. Who knows what happens? So it’s costing them dearly. And again, I don’t know. I don’t have the easy fix the and I don’t want to say it’s purely emotional, because he’s been that bad, but the the emotional decision to just cut him fine. But again, who are you bringing in that you have a legitimately better level of confidence in? And if the answer is, well, anyone but Tucker? Okay, but a football
Nestor Aparicio 28:20
is dumb. I mean, you know, I’ve seen the fans and the fans the way the fans are, like, I sit here taking all day. Fire him. Fire him. That that’s not you’ve got to have a solution, yeah, and it’s not better be a guy that can still make a 53 yard field. You need to make it.
Luke Jones 28:37
And I do want to push back a little bit on that’s just dumb, because it’s also just dumb if you just continue to put your head in the sand and just let Justin Tucker continue to try him out there every week, if that’s if this isn’t going to get
Nestor Aparicio 28:49
better, but if he’s making it on the backfield, he’s his leg is long enough to make it, and he’s clinking extra points. This isn’t about whether he can do it. He can right? So it’s different when we’re talking about a baseball player that can’t hit a fastball, like Chris Davis, right? When you’re looking at it and saying he just can’t kick the ball anymore, that’s not where Justin Tucker is, and I and to your point, can he make a 66 yarder? I bet he couldn’t in in Detroit, in inside? Sure, right? You know what I mean, given the he what’s the old Toby key? I’m not as good as I once was, but I was once as good as I want, whatever the hell that is in any one kick with the Super Bowl on the line for 48 yards in New Orleans on February. I’ll take my chances with Justin Tucker right now. It’s December 2. He has he’s kicked like garbage the last eight weeks, because I still see the leg on it, I still see the distance on it, I still see that he’s a scientist about this, so for that, I want that better than some 23 year old kid from Penn State who may have a puddle between his legs. Yeah,
Luke Jones 29:54
and, and What’s tricky about this is you can’t simulate. In that arena, on the backfields and Owings Mills, or in the field house during the bye week, you can have, I couldn’t tell you, the number of physical specimens that look outstanding in OTAs, and I’m not kickers, just football players in general, the number of wide receivers or linebackers or safeties or corners or alignment, they all look like NFL. They all off the bus. Yeah, you know when they’re in shorts, when they’re in a I don’t want to say it’s no pressure, because when you’re when you’re trying to kick for a job in the NFL, when you’re trying to win a job in the NFL, there’s pressure. But it’s certainly not the pressure of kicking against the Philadelphia Eagles or the Pittsburgh Steelers in late November, early December, let alone January, when it’s a playoff game and your season’s on the line, you can’t simulate that. So that’s where, again, you’re looking at this through the lens of trying to perceive where Justin Tucker is right now, which obviously is a terrible place with
30:59
kickers A, B and
Luke Jones 31:00
C that you potentially considered bringing in to work out or even sign, you know, I mean, that there could be a scenario where they sign a kicker, that they might have two kickers on their roster coming out of the bye week. Who knows? Right? I mean, I’m not saying that’s out of the question by any stretch of the imagination, or should be. But again, it’s all about the next kick, and then the one after that, and then the one after that. And you don’t know how that’s going to go for anyone, so you only have track record to go off of. So that’s where you look at it, and say, Who’s track record right now? Which, what kicker out there right now? Do you feel good about their present day track record? Meaning 2024 because if they were any good, they’d be with the team right now. And if you’re going off of prior history, well, no one matches Justin Tucker in that regard. So again, I’ll hear it. I’ll hear it. Other names work out kick the tires. I’m fine with that, but to just sit here and say I’m absolutely cutting Justin Tucker, and I’m signing kicker x, and then problem solved. That’s WAY easier said than done. That’s WAY easier to say that when you’re sitting at the bar or, you know, to borrow the expression from John Harbaugh sitting at the end of the bar a couple years ago, you know, when he said that a couple years ago, but that said, I mean, you come out of the bye week, and if Justin Tucker has another game like this against the Giants, I don’t know how you you don’t make a change of some sort. And again, that maybe that means, maybe that means Justin Tucker gets put on IR, you know, you figure something out to to stash them, because you still want to see if you can salvage this next year. But I mean, this, this is not good man. I mean, it’s just not because you’ve got a championship team in your mind, regardless of the fact that they’re eight and five. But he’s a reason why they’re eight and five. He’s one of the reasons they’re eight and five this year. He’s missed kicks in all five of their losses this year, and they’ve lost close games. So I don’t want to, I’m trying to, to be measured about this, but it this is just, this is a bad situation right now. It’s really, really bad other ass elements of this football team. We could sit here and overreact, right? Lamar wasn’t very good on Sunday. Lamar still right there with Josh Allen and whoever else in terms of the MVP conversation, he’s been that good. The offense wasn’t very good collectively after the first quarter on Sunday, but it’s still been one of the very best offenses in football this year. You know, the defense disappointing in the fourth quarter, giving up the yardage on the ground, the dam broke. Saquon Barkley had the 25 yard touchdown. But the defense collectively, the last few weeks, I feel better about it than I did back in week eight, week nine. But this Justin Tucker thing, the element of wanting to cut them and just saying, I don’t care who you bring in, anyone’s better, like all that. You know that that that’s that’s grounded in emotion. However, to sit here and try to sugar coat it and just say, Oh, I trust Justin Tucker. I trust Justin Tucker. He’s got this is a really bad situation. It absolutely is, and it’s uncomfortable because it is someone who has the track record he has, but it’s costing them football games period. I mean, he’s absolutely costing them football games
Nestor Aparicio 34:29
again. It it’s never just one guy or one thing, but you’re being really hard on him, and we’re being really hard. I just don’t know who’s behind door number two, I don’t you know, I don’t know where this destruction is. Guy who can kick the ball 70 yards still and just can’t make it go as straight as he used to do it that. And look, I do want to say I’m not a fan of Justin Tucker, if you haven’t noticed this segment, but that being said, I Nestor. I don’t care about
Luke Jones 34:57
that part. No, I wouldn’t be totally honest. I
Nestor Aparicio 34:59
wouldn’t. I wouldn’t cut it right. I don’t think there’s a better solution than sending him out there, because I think he can still do this.
Luke Jones 35:06
But here’s the problem and where I’ll push back a little bit on what you said. There are lots of kickers you can kick the ball a great distance, the Matt stovers, who are guys that you don’t trust from a certain distance, those kickers are basically extinct at this point in time. All these guys have strong legs. Now, can they kick it straight? Can they kick it between the uprights? Do they have the head? Do they have the stomach to kick when you know you’re in Kansas City trying to win a football game, or in Baltimore trying to win a football game, or in Buffalo when it’s or Cleveland or Pittsburgh, where it’s kind of windy, all those, those are the big questions. So you know, the leg talent itself, I agree with you. It’s not as though his he suddenly can’t kick it a great distance. The problem is he can’t kick it straight, right and and that’s typical. But if I’m going to lose the season and have a season go down. I’d
Nestor Aparicio 36:00
rather have it be him next month than another. Billy Cundiff, you know, I mean, I’m just saying, if somebody’s gonna miss a kick in Buffalo to get us eliminated at this point, I kind of wanted to be Justin Tucker. I mean, instead of make a name up player X, for lack of a better, because I think that I I’ve seen Tucker do it, and I guess that’s where hardball would be. I think that’s where the Costa would be. I would think this gets the Bucha his desk, quite frankly, because Bucha is uppity about all of this stuff, much more so than fans realize. Like, in a big way, like on the phone with John after the game Sunday night. Steve has opinions on this. I believe me. He does believe me. So when it, when it comes to this thing, you and I are talking about it, fans are talking about it. I’m too hard on him. You’re not hard enough. I love him. Eats chicken. I he signed an autograph for me. He was nice, whatever the emotion is, horrible to Costa and Bucha and Randy Brown and the powers that be, the people that make real decisions out there, like Chad Steele, will be involved in this, and they have to wake up the day after somebody else misses a kick in Buffalo that they bring in here on a windy day in December, and they meet for the first time this week and say, we’re going to trust you with Our operation in January. I don’t know. I don’t know. I, I, I don’t know. I like to think where the loyalties to the organization are and where the confidence level in Tucker is, and look, they threw me out like a bag of donuts after 30 years. They threw Joe Flacco out. They they throw anybody out. So there’s no feelings involved in this, but the feelings for me is, if Harbaugh has to take the podium in Buffalo after they beat Pittsburgh, somehow, because Lamar zigs left and right, and they can’t tackle Derrick Henry, and they get the Buffalo, and it’s windy, and somebody we’ve never heard of misses a 38 yard field goal or misses an extra point, I’d rather it be Justin Tucker If the season is going to go down, I don’t want that happening with the flavor of the month, and that’s how I feel. That’s not even a loyalty to Tucker. That’s because I’m seeing him still be able to hit the ball 60 yards.
Luke Jones 38:11
Yeah, well, and I’m not as moved by by that part of it, like the last thing you just said, but the rest of it, I agree. And I’ll throw, I’ll throw this scenario into it. You what you just laid out? Just if, just if the Ravens were to cut Justin Tucker, he’d have a job by the end of the week. Because there are other teams who don’t trust their kicker, and they would say, You know what, we’re going to roll the dice at a fresh start for the greatest kicker in NFL history, or we thought going into the year, he’s 35 he’s not 45 our special teams guy actually noticed a little and I’m making this part up because I don’t know if this is true or not. We noticed a little hitch in his mechanics that we think we can fix, and maybe they just no one’s picked up on it. So your scenario plays out, someone misses a kick that costs the ravens, and Justin Tucker is kicking for I don’t, I don’t know, even know who it would be right now, makes a field goal to send another team to the conference championship. I mean that scenario. So again, this is, this is bad. It’s bad. I don’t want to sit here and and try to, it’s bad, but
Nestor Aparicio 39:21
I don’t know that there’s a decision to be made. That’s what I’m saying to you. I don’t know that there’s a decision to be made that they’re going to bring three guys we’ve never heard in or some guy who kicked for Philadelphia five years ago that we’ve you know, whatever, whoever it is, it’s not Justin Tucker, and if the season goes down because of that guy, I can’t justify it. I can justify because, you know, he’s Justin Tucker and he’s still kicking the ball. So my prescription isn’t to find a new kicker as much as that’s the flavor on the street. And like all of that, that’s not, I don’t think that’s smart, and I don’t think that’s what grown ups will do, and I don’t think that’s what the. Costa and Harbaugh and Bucha, quite frankly, will do well,
Luke Jones 40:03
I don’t know if the word is smart as much as practical. I don’t know if that’s practical at this point in the year. Let me give you an example, right? And again, I I watched zero UFL football this spring. However, back in June, the Detroit Lions signed Jake Bates out of the UFL go look at his numbers. And I’m, I’m looking at this is per Wikipedia. So I don’t want to say it’s 100% accurate, but you know, it’s all I have to go off of as I’m sitting on the internet with my stream, with my stream of consciousness right now as I’m looking at this. But he, he played for the Michigan Panthers back in the spring. He went 17 of 22 he did hit a 64 yard field goal, um, you know, kicked in the postseason. Look, he was four of six in the postseason. So you look at that profile, there’s nothing about that that screams, oh my gosh, we need to sign this guy, the lion. Signed the guy in June. Now sign him in June. That means you have him for all of training camp, to look at him, to work with him, your special teams coaching operation. He’s been excellent for the Lions. Go look at his numbers. He’s been excellent. Is there another Jake Bates out there right now? I’m not going to sit here with any semblance of authority or trying to fake expertise and say that I know that there is or that there isn’t. However, doing that in March or June or even late July or the middle of training camp is a completely different animal than saying that you you’re going to attempt to do that in December. So, you know, again, I don’t think it’s as much about the organization being smart one way or the other. I think it’s a it’s a practicality issue. Who exactly are you bringing in that you’re going to have such a a superior level of confidence in at this moment on December 2, you know, the day after the Ravens lose to the Eagles, and Tucker misses three kicks that then Justin Tucker and his long track record, his work ethic, your familiarity with them, in hopes of trying to Get him back on track. You know that that proposition, and look, keeping Justin Tucker isn’t great either, right now, right? But practically speaking, I don’t know what you want to do, other than just having emotion involved that you’re you’re kicked off, you’re frustrated. Fans were booing them on Sunday. I mean, and he’s been really bad this year, right? I don’t want to, I don’t want to sugar coat it. He’s been bad. Go, look at his percentage. It’s right there at the bottom of the NFL. Guys that have been worse than him, him have been cut that. That’s what we’re talking about here. So
Nestor Aparicio 42:57
Oh, and I agree with you, if his name for gold salary and would have been gone in that October probably. I mean, he was, yeah, that’s the third game after the third Miss, I would agree. Yeah. But again, who
Luke Jones 43:10
are you bringing in that is going to inspire real conviction, real confidence, not just, Oh, hey, he looked pretty good kicking the ball from 60 yards in the Field House on Tuesday morning, right? I mean, it’s, it’s more complicated than that. So I will hear all off season, and I will say, I will be saying this. I’ll be right there assuming Justin Tucker doesn’t make every kick the rest of the year and including the game winner in the Super Bowl, right? If that happens, then we won’t be talking about this. But assuming that doesn’t happen, that doesn’t happen, they absolutely need to bring in competition for him, you know, this spring, right? And this summer. And if he does, if the new guy does to him what Justin Tucker did to Billy Cundiff 12 years ago, then so be it. That’s, that’s the name of the game, right? It’s not for long. It’s competition, it’s a results driven industry. But to try to do that in the middle of the season, not the middle. We’re at the end of the season. We’re late. We’re getting late. You know, this is late, you know, we’re we’re on the stretch run at this point. It’s just, it’s not good. This is not a good situation whatsoever. It just isn’t. And I, you know, I agree with you that my first thought is not to just, certainly not to just cut them. You can bring in some kickers and kick the tires, but again, kicking in the field house on a Tuesday during the bye week. Or what’s that really what is, how do you really know,
44:44
right? How do you really know that that’s
Luke Jones 44:45
going to be any better and and you’re just, you know, you could be opening the door to just have a, a complete revolving door of kickers here, uh, over, over the final two months of the season, if, if you were to cut him so. So very long winded way of saying, I don’t know, I don’t know, really don’t know.
Nestor Aparicio 45:07
I don’t know, really don’t but I would say this, if they caught him on Friday and bring a new kicker in, we’re not shocked by that. That would be very proactive by the organization. Be bold. Yeah, it would be Bold. Bold. Yeah, I would agree with that. Luke Jones a series Baltimore. Luke won’t play a chance to talk about this. We’re gonna get back to the game and what happened in the game, and Lamar Jackson and Jalen Ernst and Derek Henry and saquon Barkley all of that. We’re gonna be doing the Maryland crab cake tour twice this week. So nice. We had to do it twice. We’re doing it twice two weeks from now. Several Maryland crab cake tour stops here for the holidays. Crab cakes always taste better during Christmas, and you can ship em as well. We’ll be Cocos on Wednesday. We’re going to be with our friends at the at Gertrude, at the BMA on Thursday of this week, next week, on Wednesday, back down at faintlys, and then on the 17th, we we make our first ever Maryland crab cake stop without crab cake. We’re going to be doing the Pawnee Rotunda. We’re going to be at amici, one of my all time favorite restaurants for the holidays. That’s on Tuesday the 17th. And 17th, and then on the 18th, will be at Costas in Dundalk. Oliver, brought to you by the Maryland lottery. Raven scratch offs, our friends at Jiffy Lube multi care, reminding you and my little orange leg came on the other day. So I got my $10 off coupon in my email. So I gotta get over to Jiffy Lube MultiCare make sure I take care of of my oil change. Luke is um, is it a little bit of a downtime here this week? No baseball this week. We don’t think, unless they’re signing Juan Soto and unless they’re cutting just the Tucker making big moves this week, the Ravens will have a couple of days off here and then get back into it with the Giants, Steelers, Texans, three games in 11 days. Crazy, crazy. Saturday Night Football, Wednesday night football Christmas. Night holiday football. Chiefs are playing the Steelers in the afternoon on Christmas Day. So get up early, drill up the trees. All I would say, find Luke out on the internet. You can find me anywhere that W NST and Baltimore positive travels. I am Nestor. He is Luke. We are W n s t am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. And if I could kick the ball straight, I go kick it myself. We’re Baltimore positive. I.
