{"id":30978,"date":"2025-05-07T12:21:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T12:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/30978\/"},"modified":"2025-05-07T12:21:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-07T12:21:13","slug":"tyler-loop-will-ravens-rookie-be-ready-to-replace-justin-tucker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/30978\/","title":{"rendered":"Tyler Loop: Will Ravens rookie be ready to replace Justin Tucker?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is nothing that will quite prepare Ravens rookie kicker Tyler Loop for the burden of replacing Justin Tucker<\/a>. No guidebooks on following the most accurate kicker in NFL history exist. But Danny Gonzales tried his best last year. <\/p>\n

In his lone season as Arizona\u2019s special teams coordinator, Gonzales baked pressure into every practice with his star senior. The Wildcats would start with late-game scenarios \u2014 move-the-ball periods, two-minute drills, always ending with a field goal attempt. The end of practice would depend on Loop, too: Make a kick, and the workout\u2019s over. Miss it, and the team runs.<\/p>\n

Gonzales couldn\u2019t remember the team ever having to run.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe young man was clutch,\u201d Gonzales, now Arizona\u2019s defensive coordinator, said in an interview. \u201cHe\u2019s the kind of guy that wants that pressure. He wants that opportunity. It\u2019s never, \u2018Let\u2019s go score a touchdown.\u2019 It\u2019s always: He wants it to come down to him. And he has ultimate confidence in his ability, which is well deserved.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Baltimore Banner thanks its sponsors. Become one.<\/a><\/p>\n

With the Ravens\u2019 release of Tucker<\/a>, a seven-time Pro Bowl selection whose alleged inappropriate sexual behavior<\/a> at Baltimore-area spas and wellness centers has come under NFL scrutiny, Loop is stepping into historic shoes. The sixth-round pick is the first kicker the Ravens have ever drafted<\/a>. His predecessor is the Ravens\u2019 all-time leading scorer, one of the most clutch players in NFL history, a Baltimore sports icon. <\/p>\n

On Sunday, a day before general manager Eric DeCosta announced Tucker\u2019s release, Ravens coach John Harbaugh acknowledged the limits of his special teams expertise. Would Loop be ready for Baltimore\u2019s pressure cooker?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think you\u2019re ever going to really know,\u201d Harbaugh said. \u201cEverything guys do in their first year is like a new day. So if it\u2019s a kicker, every kick is going to be the first time he\u2019s done it over the course of his rookie season. So it\u2019s always going to be a little bit of \u2014 certainly going to be an unknown. Whenever you go with the rookie kicker, that would be an unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ravens searched far and wide for Tucker\u2019s potential successor this offseason. Jamie Kohl, the director of Kohl\u2018s Kicking Camps and a widely respected specialist trainer<\/a>, joked in an interview last month that he\u2019d talked to Ravens senior special teams coach Randy Brown \u201ca couple of times in the last couple of months\u201d during the predraft process, \u201cand he\u2019s been in a different ZIP code every time I\u2019ve talked to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown, who joined Harbaugh\u2019s staff in 2008 as a kicking consultant and worked closely with Tucker as he developed into the NFL\u2018s best kicker, returned to Owings Mills coveting one prospect, according to Ravens officials. He wanted Loop.<\/p>\n

The Baltimore Banner thanks its sponsors. Become one.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think for us, we kind of felt like we had to draft him,\u201d DeCosta said after the Ravens took Loop No. 186 overall. \u201cWe think he\u2019s got a really strong leg, and he\u2019s got a lot of potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no doubting that right leg\u2019s strength. Kohl has worked with some of the top kickers in college football and the NFL. Loop, he said, \u201chas as much leg talent as anyone we\u2019ve had.\u201d He\u2019s trained at Kohl\u2018s camps since he was a sophomore in high school, Kohl said, and in that span, Loop\u2019s hit multiple 70-plus-yard field goals in game-like settings. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe can routinely hit field goals from 70 yards like [they\u2019re] nothing,\u201d Gonzales said. He often had to remind Wildcats head coach Brent Brennan of Loop\u2019s range whenever the offense crossed midfield last season. \u201cI would get on the headset and tell \u2018B,\u2019 \u2018Hey, man, you\u2019ve got the opportunity to kick this if we want it\u2019 \u2014 which just sounds silly. But Tyler had that much of a leg that we always had that confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scouts would come away from Loop\u2019s pregame warmups in awe, Gonzales said. In an early-November loss at Central Florida, the wind before kickoff was something fierce, Gonzales recalled, whipping about \u201cin a circle.\u201d Loop\u2019s field goals cut through the elements. <\/p>\n

In Arizona\u2019s next game, a win over Houston, Loop hit a school-record 62-yard field goal as time expired in the first half. The ball cleared the uprights with ease. It might\u2019ve been good from 67 yards. Tucker\u2019s NFL-record kick, set in a 2021 win over the Detroit Lions, was a mere 66 yards.<\/p>\n

The Baltimore Banner thanks its sponsors. Become one.<\/a><\/p>\n

Tucker had to develop his power early in his Ravens career. Loop\u2019s comes prepackaged. A high school soccer player and sprinter, Loop has \u201csuch a fast leg,\u201d Kohl said. Gonzales marveled at Loop\u2019s straight-line speed during Arizona\u2019s practices, where he would match Wildcats wide receivers and defensive backs stride for stride during sprints, if not overtake them altogether. <\/p>\n

Gonzales said he tried to convince Loop to run the 40-yard dash at the NFL scouting combine, \u201cjust for shits and giggles.\u201d He estimates that Loop would\u2019ve clocked a time in the \u201cupper 4.4s.\u201d Tetairoa McMillan, a former Wildcats teammate and the first wide receiver drafted last month, posted a 4.55-second 40 at Arizona\u2019s pro day, according to The Athletic<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a special talent that they can use, because he can scoot,\u201d Gonzales said. \u201cHe\u2019s a good athlete, I\u2019ll tell you that. He\u2019s more than just a kicker. It\u2019s awesome.\u201d <\/p>\n

Loop went 12-for-12 on field goals as a freshman at Arizona, but his accuracy over the next three years fell to 80.9% (55-for-68). Five of those misses came on 50-plus-yard attempts, and Kohl said Loop would need to prove his consistency to Ravens officials. <\/p>\n

But the occasional operational shortcoming was also to blame. The Wildcats\u2019 holder in 2024 was a true freshman who was also balancing punter duties. Loop, who Kohl said \u201ctook a pay cut\u201d to stay at Arizona despite a coaching change and interest from other programs, kept his patience. Gonzales called his work with the team\u2019s kicking battery \u201cunbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Baltimore Banner thanks its sponsors. Become one.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cA couple of his misses were undoubtedly failed operations between the deep snapper and the holder, and instead of losing his mind on those guys because of all the things that Tyler was playing for \u2026 he never wavered from trying to coach them up and trying to make them better,\u201d Gonzales said. \u201cWhich is a veteran move, because for all the things that he had in play, to be screwed up by something that was completely out of his control and to not lose focus and not lose it on those guys, I mean, I think it shows what an opportunity as a professional he has.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tools are there. So is the support. Kohl praised Loop\u2019s \u201cgreat\u201d snap-to-kick time and said the ball \u201cjumped off his foot as good as anybody in this draft.\u201d In Baltimore, where Harbaugh and Brown have helped establish one of the league\u2019s best specialist infrastructures, Kohl said that \u201cthere is as good of an opportunity for someone to be successful as any place in the NFL.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether Loop can withstand the psychological rigors of the job is the great unknown. Tucker\u2019s accuracy was inextricable from his poise under fire. From 2016 to 2022, he made an NFL-record 65 straight field goals in the fourth quarter and overtime.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter who got picked by the Ravens, that\u2019s going to be part of the equation,\u201d Kohl said. \u201cAnd in my opinion, Justin Tucker\u2019s the greatest kicker in NFL history. So whoever\u2019s going to step foot into those shoes is going to have to weather the storm of, if you look at NFL statistics, rookie kickers generally do not have as good of a percentage as veterans, OK? Now if he can make it through, make it through the storm, and get into your second and third and fourth [season], now, all of a sudden, you see the reason why those guys got drafted. Because you\u2019re drafting on talent. \u2026 <\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s not what\u2019s going to keep you in the NFL. It\u2019s going to be showing up every day and just being a consistent player, where the head coach, the special teams coach, his teammates, everybody believes in him. And I do think he\u2019s welcoming that challenge.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Baltimore Banner thanks its sponsors. Become one.<\/a><\/p>\n

Loop endeared himself to the Ravens\u2019 Brown along every step of his long march to the draft. At the combine, he hit 13 of 14 field goal attempts and finished by making a 60-yarder. At a private workout for the Ravens, Loop had what he told Gonzales was a \u201cfantastic\u201d performance \u2014 a surprisingly confident self-assessment for a perfectionist. After the draft, DeCosta called Loop the class\u2019 best kicker. <\/p>\n

During a video conference with local reporters, Loop already looked prepared for what was to come. Wearing a Ravens shirt he\u2019d ordered a few days before the draft, Loop took questions with an easygoing smile and said the word \u201cexcited\u201d five times over a span of 10 questions. Asked about the pressure of possibly competing with or replacing Tucker, he cracked a sly grin.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s really exciting more than pressure, just because it gives you something to shoot for, right?\u201d he said. \u201cWe always want to be improving. We always want to be chasing perfection and learning how to adjust well and make kicks. Getting to follow in the footsteps of a guy like him, who\u2019s been so elite, and get to compete with him and maybe learn from him, that gets me fired up. I\u2019m ready to get up there and start competing and finding ways to win games and make kicks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is nothing that will quite prepare Ravens rookie kicker Tyler Loop for the burden of replacing Justin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2052],"tags":[184,117,2282,7,58,11697,6,169],"class_list":{"0":"post-30978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baltimore-ravens","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-baltimore-ravens","10":"tag-baltimoreravens","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-los-angeles-rams","13":"tag-mt-bank-stadium","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-ravens"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114466526717145791","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}