I don’t know where else to start. This hurts.
It is painful to pore over the details of The Banner’s investigation into Ravens kicker Justin Tucker, someone we thought we knew well. Aside from the accounts of the accusers, which are graphic and stomach-churning, the overwhelming feeling I get is that something has been taken from the people who have come to revere Tucker, not just as a sports hero but as one of the most accessible, most relatable players off the field, too.
Now we have to square that with the accounts of six women who held their disgust silently for years.
Their accounts, which Tucker categorically disputes, show a man who was inappropriate and indecent, and who pushed boundaries that aren’t meant to be pushed. Two businesses in our community thought Tucker’s alleged behavior was sufficiently inappropriate to ban him from their establishments.
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Tucker criticized the Banner’s reporting and the allegations, calling them “unequivocally false” in a statement posted on Twitter. He said he had never “been accused of misconduct of any kind” by massage therapists and had not been banned from any spas.
But the allegations leveled by the six therapists are incredibly troubling — all the more so because Tucker felt so familiar to us.
Justin Tucker attends the 2022 ESPY Awards in Hollywood, Calif. (Leon Bennett / Getty Images)
His clutch, game-winning kicks earned him the reputation as the best kicker in NFL history. You could always count on him to deliver — “Thank God for Justin Tucker” was an unofficial team motto for much of the last decade.
But he has also risen to more than that in the eyes of this community. His passion for opera singing made him just as formidable onstage in a tux as suited up on a football field. He held an open kicking practice at Patterson Park and has been a regular at Orioles games. NFL specialists are generally considered oddballs in the macho world of pro football, but with his easygoing, affable charm, Tucker has been a likable Renaissance man whom Baltimore quickly embraced and exalted.
These memories, to me, feel a whole lot dimmer today. As I read The Banner’s investigation, I could almost feel joy and nostalgia draining from them, line by line.
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While Tucker was creating highlights and commercials, establishing himself as a bedrock community figure, he garnered a far different reputation among massage therapists who say they still bear emotional scars from his behavior. One massage therapist told The Banner: “I can’t watch sports anymore. I see his face everywhere.”
The pain these women describe has to be the paramount concern as their stories finally surface. But, at the same time, I cannot help but think of the Ravens fans who will feel betrayed to learn about how Tucker is alleged to have acted behind closed doors.
If my own feelings are anything to go by, they’ll be struck by a wave of sadness.
This will be a test for the Ravens, who have boasted in the past of a “zero-tolerance” policy that has, in practice, been conveniently vague and open to case-by-case interpretation. It will be a test for the NFL, which has consistently underwhelmed in long investigations that rarely dole out severe consequences.
A Ravens spokesman said, “We take any allegations of this nature seriously and will continue to monitor the situation.” The NFL said it will “look into the matter.”
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While the NFL negotiated an 11-game suspension for Deshaun Watson, that punishment was somewhat undermined when he received the largest guaranteed contract in league history in 2022. He has fallen out of favor in Cleveland, but in large part because he simply hasn’t played well enough to justify his checkered past, the ultimate display of sports cynicism.
If the standard to meet was moral decency, Watson should never have played another NFL down. The allegations against Tucker are not as overt or as widespread as the ones leveled against Watson, but they are still serious charges that must be investigated.
There is no separating Tucker’s prominence as an athlete from how he is alleged to have conducted himself. Several women who spoke to The Banner described their professional pride when working with Ravens players and being a small part of helping the team win games on Sundays, which made it all the more difficult for them to rationalize how Tucker behaved.
More than two dozen women have sued Watson. Will the allegations of six women — and the confirmation from two of their spas that banned him — be enough to convince NFL power brokers that Tucker deserves accountability?
Even if nothing changes, a mental switch has already flipped for me. It’s impossible for me to read these accounts and not view Tucker, his games and his records differently.
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For so many years, Tucker appeared to Baltimore like a godsend. He has been competent, reliable, funny and relatable. He’s a big part of some of the best sports memories we have. Even when he struggled on the field this season, Ravens fans wanted to see him surge back into his old self.
Now, it just hurts. It turns out we may not have known him like we thought.
