THE BIG CRAB CAKE: Give One to The GOAT!

We’ve seen it happen in sports before. A player gets the yips. Hoops players suddenly can’t hit a free throw. A second baseman can’t throw to first. A golfer develops a case of the shanks. It happens to even the most accomplished professional athletes and when it does, it creeps into their heads, weighs on their minds and erodes confidence. Enter Justin Tucker.

For Tucker, the first four weeks of the season were a struggle. Heading into yesterday’s game he was 5 of 8 on field goal attempts and since the start of the 2023 season, he was just 1 of 7 on FGA’s from 50 yards plus. Meanwhile, kickers across the league were regularly connecting from 50+.

Perhaps it was too soon to suggest that Tucker was suffering from a case of the yips, but clearly, questions about his long distance struggles weighed on his mind given his visibly agitated state when questioned by the media about the slump.

Tucker is a grinder, a perfectionist. He aspires to kick for many more years, with his sights set upon the hallowed halls of Canton’s Pro Football Hall of Fame. So you know that he put in the work to break the slump.

Yesterday, down 38-35, the Ravens faced a 4th-and-6 from the Bengals 38 with 1:40 left in the 4th quarter. If the Ravens were to attempt the game-tying field goal, it would be from 56 yards out. The kick would be challenged by intermittent crosswinds that would certainly factor into the outcome of the attempt.

Full disclosure, I wanted the Ravens to go for the first down. They had already proven that their defense was like melted butter to the hot knife of Joe Burrow’s right arm. Three points didn’t seem like enough if the Bengals got the ball back with 90 seconds left. We already witnessed what they did to the Ravens defense with 25 seconds left at the end of the first half. Did we really need to see Part II?

Even more concerning than that, the wind was as a big factor and that coupled with Tucker’s 1-for-7 slump from long distance, made six yards of offense on 4th down seem like a safer bet. Yet John Harbaugh, as he has so many times before, sent out his kicker to tie the game.

Tucker played this kick brilliantly.

Like a golfer attempting to hit a stinger with a 3-iron to cut through the wind and practically use it as a tool to achieve the desired end result, Tuck nailed the 56-yarder with plenty of room to spare.

JUSTIN TUCKER TIES IT WITH 1:35 LEFT.

WHAT A GAME.

: #BALvsCIN on CBS/Paramount+
: https://t.co/waVpO8ZBqG pic.twitter.com/LTxhpdAGjN

— NFL (@NFL) October 6, 2024

Considering the pressure of an all-important divisional game, recent failures from 50+, the elements and level of difficulty, the kick was amazingly clutch. And when you factor in the heroics of Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry, this 56-yarder that enabled the win, somehow gets lost in the mix of things that had to happen for the Ravens to win – to pull victory from the jaws of defeat. But that win never happens without this improbable kick from 56 by arguably the game’s G.O.A.T.

Justin Tucker posing for the camera after the game yesterday: pic.twitter.com/RlJitrDm8P

— Ravens Nation ð™‡ð™„ð™‘𙀠(@LIVERavenNation) October 7, 2024

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