The Ravens Lose Another Winnable Game Featuring Multiple Missed Kicks By Justin Tucker

Another week, another Ravens game where they just couldn't put it all together. The Eagles played the better game in cold weather and closed the door, but that game was very much there for the taking and the Ravens came up soft. Plain and simple. 

While the Ravens defense showed some serious teeth for the majority of this game (and have the last few weeks), they broke down late against Saquon and Hurts, which felt a little too much like a dose of our own medicine. They eventually broke thru and put this game out of reach. But it's really challenging to put this loss on the defense. Offensively the Ravens struggled to piece together any sort of consistency or rhythm. They got out of the gates to a solid start, but missed a couple opportunities to break it open in the first half. A missed throw to a wide open Isiah Likely stands out, which preceded a fumbled snap that resulted in a sack that squashed the drive. A 9-0 lead easily could have been extended, and instead they punted and the tides turned.

The offensive line really struggled to give Lamar the time and space that he's had the last few weeks. We've known the Eagles secondary is top tier and they lived up to that mark today… but it didn't feel like Lamar had much time to breathe back there. He started to take the yards we've all been begging him to take on scrambles, but I still feel he left a bunch on the table. I also felt as though we were not QUICK enough to abandon the run, which I know sounds crazy given who it is that we have in the backfield and our recent history of doing the opposite. But it had gotten increasingly clear that we simply weren't going to batter the Eagles into submission the way we have other teams this year. There weren't a lot of answers out there, but I felt as though we would have found more of them by leaning more on Lamar today.

But none of that is the conversation in Baltimore right now… it's all about Justin Tucker. What is there to say? Two missed kicks and a missed extra point to add to the huge tally of missed kicks for the year. I have been saying for weeks that I will go down with the ship on JT this year, and I stand by it. And I've said a bunch of times that it's been a one-way miss with him this year, and nearly all of the misses have been narrow misses on long kicks. Some of that continued to be true… the field goal misses were long, but the extra point is as concerning as any miss yet. And one of the long misses was one he pushed out to right and it just didn't curl back left enough to the upright… but at the end of the day, misses are misses and they are killing this football team right now. He has missed a kick in all 5 of their losses this year, all of which were one-score losses. It's dramatic to put the blame on JT for having lost us a few of those games, but at this point… in the aggregate the Ravens are probably 10-3 instead of 8-5 if we have the old JT, and probably 9-4 if he was simply kicking at a league average level. We're 1.5 games out of the division lead… so yeah it's pretty material.

I hear everybody calling for Harbaugh to make a change. I implore those people to be smarter. A kicker off the street is no guaranteed fix even in the short term, and it's a low percentage play in the long term. We're obviously running out of time for him to figure it out, but kickers on the street are kickers on the street for a reason. Right now we just need to understand that we have a tough hand at the kicker position and treat it accordingly - that means sending the offense out there on a few more 4th downs, maybe mixing in some 2 point conversion attempts, whatever. But this guy has earned enough leash to get at LEAST this year and training camp next year to turn it around. The upside is too high. It's frustrating as hell in the interim, but it is what it is. 

I am curious what people think would be a more frustrating outcome - losing in the playoffs on a JT miss to lose the game… or cutting the greatest kicker of all time and having some unproven kid come in and do the same. Not to say that should dictate our decision-making here, but it's one way to consider how insane it might be to make a change…. even if it feels like it's a proactive approach.

I dunno man. I'm at a loss of words here. I trust he'll get it figured out eventually if given the chance… but I also thought it would've been figured out by now. Either way, I've said my piece. I'm going down with the ship on Justin Tucker.

Big picture…. this is a bye week that has been a long time coming. Little ridiculous how late in the year it is, but they'll get a nice tune-up game coming back against the Giants and then it'll be time to go take what's ours. Flush the loss today, get rested, and come back better for the home stretch.