The battle at the kicker position will be “based on football,” Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh said on Sunday in light of allegations against incumbent Justin Tucker.
The Ravens spent a sixth-round draft pick last month on former Arizona kicker Tyler Loop. He kicked for the first time at the team’s facility in Owings Mills, Md., on Sunday, when the Ravens began their rookie minicamp.
Tucker, 35, is a seven-time Pro Bowler and five-time All-Pro first teamer who is coming off the worst of his 13 seasons, all with the Ravens. His issues go beyond the field, however.
He is accused of engaging in inappropriate behavior with several female massage therapists. Sixteen women have accused Tucker of misconduct at eight high-end spas in the Baltimore area from 2012-16. Tucker has twice publicly denied the allegations.
Tucker has been working out and practicing kicking at the Ravens’ facility over the last couple of weeks. Tucker and Loop could be practicing together on May 27, the start of the team’s offseason training activities.
Harbaugh was asked on Sunday how the team will handle the kicker competition between the veteran and the drafted rookie.
“Every decision we make has to be based on football,” Harbaugh said. “There’s a lot of layers to that. You’ve got a rookie kicker and here you took him in the sixth round, early in the sixth round. He’s a talented guy. Just from a football standpoint — salary cap, all the different things that you just take into consideration — whatever we decide to do over the next few weeks will be based on football.”
Baltimore could gain $4.2 million in salary cap space this year, ESPN reported, if Tucker is designated as a post-June 1 cut, which splits $7.5 million in dead money over two seasons.
The Ravens said before the draft that they would not determine Tucker’s status with the team until after the NFL completes its investigation.
“I would just say from a standpoint of the investigation and all that, I mean, we don’t know anything,” Harbaugh said. “We haven’t been given any information, and as it should be. It’s all done the way it’s done. So, we don’t know anything along those lines, so we can’t make any decisions based on that.”
The Ravens selected Loop with the No. 186 overall pick.
Regarded as one of the top kicking prospects in the draft, Loop made 18 of 23 kicks for the Wildcats as a senior, including a school-record 62-yarder against Houston. He also had 53 touchbacks on 56 kickoffs in being named honorable mention All-Big 12.
Tucker, an undrafted free agent out of Texas in 2012, has become the league’s all-time leader in field-goal accuracy, making 89.1 percent of his kicks. But he made a career-low 73.3 percent (22 of 30) last season and was just 11 of 19 from 40 or more yards.
