Tucker spent 13 seasons in Baltimore as one of the top kickers in the NFL. / Tommy Gilligan-Imagn Images
We now see what it takes to be released in the NFL for being credibly accused of serially harassing a large number of massage therapists: be a (relatively) expensive player at a nonpremium position on the wrong side of 30 who just had his worst season in the league.
Seriously, let’s remember Justin Tucker’s Monday afternoon release from the Baltimore Ravens when another NFL team after the Cleveland Browns gives Deshaun Watson an opportunity because they believe in “redemption” or “healing” or “maturation” when the word we’re searching for is “cheap potential.”
Obviously, what teams—all of them, to be clear—hold truest in their hearts is the simulation of some type of axis along which they measure the amount of crap they’re willing to take for having an allegedly unsavory character on the roster versus what the benefit of keeping said character on the roster is in terms of points and victories. While it seems ridiculous to have held up the process of releasing Tucker for three months while the league investigated accusations of wrongful behavior levied by 16 Baltimore-area massage therapists (a report in the Baltimore Banner first brought these issues to light in January), we have to remember that Tucker was, for a time, the Steph Curry of kickers. His long-distance prowess altered the field dimensions for the Ravens and brought points into play that aren’t realistic for other teams. In a game often decided by the thinnest of margins, Tucker was, until last season, a weapon where other kickers would be considered a total liability.
I’m assuming that it was in this spirit that Tucker got his release termed a “football” decision in a statement by the Ravens on Monday, even though the decision came closer to the revelations of Tucker’s off-field misdeeds than a season in which he made just 73% of his field goals (22 of 30). And, if you’re about to say that it took that long for Baltimore to find a suitable replacement for Tucker (the Ravens selected Tyler Loop in the sixth round of the 2025 NFL draft) my response would be that there’s a zero percent chance that a kicker Baltimore believed to be more skilled than Tucker—quite possibly the best kicker in NFL history—would make it until the sixth round of the draft. (Yes, I know Tucker himself was an undrafted free agent more than a decade ago, but do we really think that talent level is as easy to hide today, and would the Ravens of all teams risk not taking that person for five rounds?)
This is the part that troubles me the most. Why can’t Baltimore say that Tucker being accused of harassing women had something—anything—to do with his release? The team was committed enough to the kicker to stick by him during a difficult on-field stretch in which Tucker made 50% or fewer of his kicks three times during a six-game stretch, in addition to missing extra points in two of those six games. The general manager, after the season, said he expected Tucker to kick for the Ravens in 2025.
If I flicked a lit cigarette into the Sports Illustrated printing press and burned the building down, I highly doubt the terms of my release would include a statement from the executive editor saying, “Well, he was just way off on his Eagles takes.” I was, of course, but clearly, something else happened. Clearly, there is a broader issue we must confront and discuss.
Whenever we in the media address moments such as this, the defensive response is something along the lines of: So what, should the guy be fired into the sun and deleted off the face of the earth now? The answer, of course, is no. Even back to Watson, who denied not only the accusations of more than two dozen women at his introductory Browns press conference but made the heroic and totally unchallenged declaration that he’d never even disrespected a woman in his life, what we are searching for at the very least is some kind of real contrition. Some kind of realization that clearly the lives of these women have been irreversibly changed. That some of them have quit their chosen professions. That some of them feel they have to dress differently for work. That some of them have to look at their client list with suspicion. That some of them need therapeutic help getting through those memories.
Tucker, for his part, has also issued a blanket denial of all allegations.
But I feel that ignoring this, while simultaneously setting the stage for the NFL to release the findings of its investigation into Tucker during a quiet Fourth of July weekend, certainly robs the women of their dignity and also society at large of the basic fact that we must acknowledge and atone for our wrongs.
It also makes it harder to challenge the next player, or public official, or candidate, or big-shot local businessperson, or power broker coach without fear that no “justice”—please note the usage of air quotes here—will be served. Because in the Tucker case, we’re now clear on the parameters, the bar one must clear and the soft landing just about anyone will be provided so long as they meet the right qualifications.
