ExtremeRavens Posted February 6 Posted February 6 Has a kicker ever meant more to an NFL city? Justin Tucker arrived in Baltimore in the spring of 2012, as the city was still reeling from a missed field goal and a lost trip to the Super Bowl for its beloved Ravens. The Houston transplant drove field goal after field goal his first season, until he and his teammates celebrated a championship under confetti rain in New Orleans. That would have been enough to cement Tucker as a hero in his new hometown, but he kept getting better. Over 13 seasons, he made field goals at a higher rate than anyone in NFL history, including a record 66-yarder to pull out a miracle win in Detroit in 2021. Tucker, now 35, wasn’t just the guy who split the uprights with superhuman efficiency. He was the telegenic pitchman who peddled Royal Farms chicken during every other commercial break, the amateur opera belter who sang “Ave Maria” at a Catholic Charities Christmas Festival to raise money for adults with intellectual disabilities, the romantic who won fans’ hearts and his girlfriend’s (now wife) with his candlelit proposal atop Baltimore’s Four Seasons Hotel. Those images of Tucker are incongruous with recent allegations by nine massage therapists of inappropriate sexual behavior from Tucker between 2012 and 2016. The Baltimore Banner reported last month that six massage therapists, who worked for four high-end spas around the Baltimore area, had accused the Ravens kicker of “exposing his genitals, brushing two of them with his exposed penis, and leaving what they believed to be ejaculate on the massage table after three of his treatments.” Three more therapists subsequently accused Tucker of inappropriate behavior in interviews with The Baltimore Sun and The Banner. Tucker called the allegations “unequivocally false” in a statement posted on X, and his attorneys told The Banner it was “unremarkable” and “not news” that his genitals might have been exposed during massage sessions. Tucker’s denials did not make it any easier for fans to process the allegations. “You want to like the guy,” said Carson Green, a Ravens fan who grew up in Catonsville and lives in Frederick. “And my reaction is: Why would six people lie, with pretty detailed reports all lining up?” Like many, Green struggled to square the star kicker who’s entwined in the fabric of Baltimore sports with the person described in the accounts of alleged misbehavior. “It’s really hard to hear,” Green said. It’s a cognitive dissonance that arises whenever a beloved athlete suddenly becomes the subject of ugly headlines. “In addition to just feeling sad about it, you feel kind of betrayed,” said Bob Dorfman, a San Francisco-based sports marketing analyst. “It’s a guy you’ve liked and followed for years, a local institution. You’re seeing him in commercials all the time locally, he seems to be a good Catholic — one of those players who crosses himself before he kicks, a family man, all of those things. So you develop a trust. You feel like he’s a friend. And then you hear something like this, and you just feel cheated. It definitely hits harder.” Of all the Ravens, Tucker has been here longest, the last remaining member of the 2012 team that swept to an unexpected Super Bowl championship. He was the fresh-faced rookie kicker from Texas, undrafted and mostly unknown until he started driving footballs through the uprights again and again in clutch moments. From there, he became perhaps the greatest ever to practice his craft, filling Baltimore with provincial pride when he was profiled on “60 Minutes,” with reporter Jon Wertheim asking: “Since when have you heard this kind of swooning over a kicker?” Commentators spoke of him as the rare kicker who’d breeze into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Tucker’s No. 9 jersey became almost as familiar a sight at M&T Bank Stadium as Ray Lewis’ No. 52 or Lamar Jackson’s No. 8. He spoke with heart on sleeve about what that bond with the public meant to him. Before the Ravens hosted the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC championship game last season, Tucker said: “I’m getting to play in my hometown stadium, where my home is. Getting to play for a championship in that way is really, really special.” In denying the accusations against him, he touched on his reputation around town, writing: “I have always made a conscious effort to be considerate and respectful in all of the interactions with the community that I love so much.” Over the past week, online discourse has run the gamut, with some fans urging the Ravens to cut ties with Tucker immediately and others arguing he deserves the benefit of the doubt given his denials and the fact that he currently faces no criminal or civil charges. Justin Tucker celebrates after making a field goal against the Bengals in 2019. (Kenneth K. Lam/Staff file) Radio host Cordell Woodland, who has talked about the allegations on his 105.7 “The Fan” show, said the majority of fans who have called in believe the reports and want to see Tucker released if the stories are found to be true. Others ask, “Why now?” Woodland said, because the nine therapists who have spoken out all said Tucker’s alleged inappropriate behavior happened years ago. “One of my callers pointed out how Tucker is a very likable guy, which makes the story tough to believe,” Woodland added. “Which is probably something that a lot of fans are struggling with, separating the guy they root for every week from the guy that may have done all these awful things.” Some fans believe Tucker’s denials precisely because they don’t think the allegations fit the figure they’ve observed over the past 13 years. “That guy seems like just a straight-and-narrow guy,” said Eric Cuppett, of Perry Hall. “I don’t know where to go with it.” Cuppett added that his view could change if more information comes to light. “I mean, if it’s true, these women need justice, and he needs to be punished,” he said. “If it [is found to be] true, I feel like he should be cut. I mean, there is no tolerance for that kind of behavior.” Kathleen Cahill, a Towson-based attorney who handles sexual harassment and misconduct cases, described herself as a “huge Ravens fan” and former Tucker fan but said it’s important for the public to understand the courage it took for the kicker’s accusers to speak out against a prominent hometown figure. “It is a very complicated and ongoing experience that they’re subjected to,” Cahill said, noting the potential for doxxing and the unlikelihood of financial benefit given the statutes of limitations in the case. “Hats off to these women. These are important stories to tell.” The Ravens’ Justin Tucker is considered by many to be the greatest kicker ever. (Karl Merton Ferron/Staff) It’s too early to know whether Tucker will face legal actions from his accusers. Whether he’ll face discipline from the NFL after Commissioner Roger Goodell said this week that the league will look into the “serious” allegations against him. Whether he’ll ever again kick for the Ravens, who said in a statement they “take any allegations of this nature seriously and will continue to monitor the situation.” If past cases are instructive, answers to some of these questions might not come for months. What seems clearer is that Tucker’s legacy in Baltimore will never again be as uncomplicated as it was before last week. Eight days before allegations against Tucker were made public, Ravens coach John Harbaugh recounted a conversation he’d had with the kicker as they reviewed a difficult 2024 season in which Tucker made a career-low 73.3% of his field goal attempts. “We had a great conversation yesterday, a really long, honest conversation, and it was great, because we talk all the time, and he’s really a good guy, a mature guy, a thoughtful guy,” Harbaugh said. “Maybe we all saw that Justin Tucker is human. Maybe we got a chance to see that. It’s hard to be a great kicker in this league and be as consistent as he’s been, and he ran into that — this adversity — probably a lot later in his career than most of these guys do, but it’s something that probably had to happen in terms of his growth as a player and even as a performer.” What Ravens fans would give to go back to that time, when they could simply debate Tucker’s chances to regain his effectiveness as a kicker. Talking about him is more difficult now. It’s apparent in the pained pauses as fans search for the right words, in the fact many don’t want to talk about this story at all, at least not for publication. One phrase kept coming up again and again as they took to Reddit, X and Facebook to share their feelings: “This hurts.” Baltimore Sun reporters Jacob Calvin Meyer and Matt Weyrich contributed to this article. Have a news tip? Contact Childs Walker at daviwalker@baltsun.com, 410-332-6893 and x.com/ChildsWalker. View the full article Quote
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