[News] Eisenberg: Reasons For A Holdup In Justin Tucker's Contract

[BR News]

A longterm deal will eventuality get done, but the Ravens need to ensure its one that they won't regret.

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[Winchester]

1 hour ago, BR News said:

A longterm deal will eventuality get done, but the Ravens need to ensure its one that they won't regret.

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Agree totally!!  While he is better than cundiff he is coming off a down year. Not for paying a kicker big money Unless the team m.o. calls for a great kicker. On a defensive oriented team the kicker could decide a playoff game with a 55 yarder. But ravens are 5-11 and need to get back to the team that a kicker could decide a big playoff game. Ravens need to contend before a kicker can decide playoff games. I would favor Tucker proving himself again b4 offering him a contract that averages $4mil per or more. So to feel comfortable shelling out nearly $5mil per to a kicker he needs to reestablish himself again as a kicker that makes well over half of his kicks of 50+ yards.

[n#7]

The Tuckman is the real deal and a perfect fit for Charm city. The extension should be sooner rather than later. Get 'er done!

[757RavensFan]

38 minutes ago, Winchester said:

Agree totally!!  While he is better than cundiff he is coming off a down year. Not for paying a kicker big money Unless the team m.o. calls for a great kicker. On a defensive oriented team the kicker could decide a playoff game with a 55 yarder. But ravens are 5-11 and need to get back to the team that a kicker could decide a big playoff game. Ravens need to contend before a kicker can decide playoff games. I would favor Tucker proving himself again b4 offering him a contract that averages $4mil per or more. So to feel comfortable shelling out nearly $5mil per to a kicker he needs to reestablish himself again as a kicker that makes well over half of his kicks of 50+ yards.

Since when did making kicks 50+ yards at a percentage greater than .500 become the norm for paying a kicker as accurate as JT? 

If JT got a long term deal tomorrow averaging $4.5M a year, I wouldn't be mad at all.  He's earned and deserves it IMO. 

Edited July 5, 2016 by 757RavensFan

[rmcjacket23]

8 minutes ago, Winchester said:

Agree totally!!  While he is better than cundiff he is coming off a down year. Not for paying a kicker big money Unless the team m.o. calls for a great kicker. On a defensive oriented team the kicker could decide a playoff game with a 55 yarder. But ravens are 5-11 and need to get back to the team that a kicker could decide a big playoff game. Ravens need to contend before a kicker can decide playoff games. I would favor Tucker proving himself again b4 offering him a contract that averages $4mil per or more. So to feel comfortable shelling out nearly $5mil per to a kicker he needs to reestablish himself again as a kicker that makes well over half of his kicks of 50+ yards.

The 50+ yard distance is irrelevant to me. Last season, the average attempts of 50+ yards were 5 per team per season. 

That's the range the Ravens should be focusing on... 5 attempts at that distance. Not a league-leading 10 like we had last season. You cut the attempts down to 5, and if he only make 2-3, its not a big deal anyway.

For some added perspective...

If you add up all kicks that produce points last season (FGs + Extra Points), you have 2,204 attempts league-wide. Of those, only 160 attempts were made of 50+ yards, which is roughly 7% of all kicks. So 93% of all kicks league-wide last season occurred inside of 50 yards.

On those 93% of kicks, Tucker missed 1 last season. He was 29/30 inside of 50 yards.

I'm not concerned about his distance kicking. The team could help themselves out by not attempting 10 long FGs a season. They even attempted 9 in 2014. 

Cut it down to the league average, and you've got nothing to worry about. The accuracy alone warrants a $4-5M contract at this point.

[Sea Wolf]

A good man that Tucker is,,, just try and keep him 50 yards or less..
I'm quite a fan of his and want to see him get a nice payday.

[ellicottraven]

Tucker really can go nowhere for the next two years. I say the sensible decision would be to allow him to play this year on the tag, see how he performs against the competition and then sign him to a long term deal next off season depending on his performance this year. Doesn't make too much sense to commit to a multi year deal from the Ravens standpoint given the amount of cap space they still have despite Tucker's tag.

Also, it wasn't like Tucker was invincible last year and automatic. He had several key misses beyond the 50 yd mark. Maybe we want to see him increase his accuracy in that range this year. Also, if we are making him the highest paid kicker in the NFL (potentially what he and his agent want), then it may be prudent to see him perform like the best kicker in the NFL this year. I don't believe the kicker's salary is going to go up substantially over this year's high anyway. So, the smart business decision would be not to extend Tucker this year.

[Saxxin]

Tucker is proven himself. Get him inked.

[rmcjacket23]

4 minutes ago, ellicottraven said:

Tucker really can go nowhere for the next two years. I say the sensible decision would be to allow him to play this year on the tag, see how he performs against the competition and then sign him to a long term deal next off season depending on his performance this year. Doesn't make too much sense to commit to a multi year deal from the Ravens standpoint given the amount of cap space they still have despite Tucker's tag.

Also, it wasn't like Tucker was invincible last year and automatic. He had several key misses beyond the 50 yd mark. Maybe we want to see him increase his accuracy in that range this year. Also, if we are making him the highest paid kicker in the NFL (potentially what he and his agent want), then it may be prudent to see him perform like the best kicker in the NFL this year. I don't believe the kicker's salary is going to go up substantially over this year's high anyway. So, the smart business decision would be not to extend Tucker this year.

To me, its kind of irrelevant. Kicker deals are pretty small, and the guaranteed money just isn't there. The good one's are getting like $10M guaranteed.

You sign him to a 4 year deal and give him like 50-60% guaranteed. You can easily cut him after year 2 if he starts kicking terrible, and that's about the window we would give him anyway.

As I addressed earlier, could care less about the 50+ accuracy. That's mostly on the offense to me.

[Minionhunter]

I hope not, but I can't help but wonder if the Ravens want to see if last year was a result of his new marriage or really was just an off year for him (the entire team was snake bitten and star crossed with some patriots sponsored voodoo jinx thrown in). He was still excellent last year despite the weird misses (and 12 inch deep pothole in the SF turf). I think personally, that it was a lone hiccup for him that was in line with the weird Ravens 2015 season.

I Just want the team and Tucker to work out a great deal for both parties and to never hear the name Cundiff compared this way to Tucker again. I didn't want him in the first place after seeing what he did in Dallas, his shanks were present then for those with eyes.

Whenever it gets done, fine, just let's lock up the Matt Stover successor and hope he more than surpasses the tall task to outshine that amazing Raven.

[757RavensFan]

23 minutes ago, Minionhunter said:

I hope not, but I can't help but wonder if the Ravens want to see if last year was a result of his new marriage or really was just an off year for him (the entire team was snake bitten and star crossed with some patriots sponsored voodoo jinx thrown in). He was still excellent last year despite the weird misses (and 12 inch deep pothole in the SF turf). I think personally, that it was a lone hiccup for him that was in line with the weird Ravens 2015 season.

I Just want the team and Tucker to work out a great deal for both parties and to never hear the name Cundiff compared this way to Tucker again. I didn't want him in the first place after seeing what he did in Dallas, his shanks were present then for those with eyes.

Whenever it gets done, fine, just let's lock up the Matt Stover successor and hope he more than surpasses the tall task to outshine that amazing Raven.
 

Luckily for us, the only bad thing that happened was the missed kick.  He could have blown out his knee on his plant foot b/c of that stupid SF field.  

Edited July 5, 2016 by 757RavensFan

[BmoreB]

There's no way to ensure making a deal they won't regret. Unless Tucker agrees to a pay per kick deal. lol

[EdTheMythicalOne]

I just want to point out a few things here Justincase you were wondering why the Ravens might not be completely willing to dive head first into the swimming pool that is Justin Tucker. While he has been quite amazing in a relatively short period of time there are some causes for concern. Let's take a look at his track record. I am going to exclude FG's under the range of 39 yards because in his entire career he's missed only one of those kicks.

He is a still incredible 34/39 in his career for kicks of 40-49 yards which is about 87.2%.

His first two seasons he was near perfect in FG's over 50 yards, making him 10/11. The following two seasons saw him coming in at 4/9 and 4/10 respectively. That makes him 8 for 19 which is a rather dismal 42.1%.

Because of those last two seasons we saw his overall FG% drop from 92.7% in 2013, to 85.3% in 2014, to 82.5% last season. Even more worrying is that almost all of his misses at the 50+ range came at home.

I like Justin Tucker and I think he's got the potential to go down as one of the best kickers to ever play the game. I don't think there is really any issue with letting him play out this season on a franchise tag to see if he can rebound a bit and if so they ink him in the next off season.

[Winchester]

2 hours ago, 757RavensFan said:

Since when did making kicks 50+ yards at a percentage greater than .500 become the norm for paying a kicker as accurate as JT? 

If JT got a long term deal tomorrow averaging $4.5M a year, I wouldn't be mad at all.  He's earned and deserves it IMO. 

What happens if he is below 500 on 45-50 yard kicks. He was average this yr. Nearly $5mil a year for a kicker that's average??

[EdTheMythicalOne]

  49 minutes ago, Minionhunter said:

I hope not, but I can't help but wonder if the Ravens want to see if last year was a result of his new marriage or really was just an off year for him (the entire team was snake bitten and star crossed with some patriots sponsored voodoo jinx thrown in). He was still excellent last year despite the weird misses (and 12 inch deep pothole in the SF turf). I think personally, that it was a lone hiccup for him that was in line with the weird Ravens 2015 season.

I Just want the team and Tucker to work out a great deal for both parties and to never hear the name Cundiff compared this way to Tucker again. I didn't want him in the first place after seeing what he did in Dallas, his shanks were present then for those with eyes.

Whenever it gets done, fine, just let's lock up the Matt Stover successor and hope he more than surpasses the tall task to outshine that amazing Raven.
 

Luckily for us, the only bad thing that happened was the missed kick.  He could have blown out his knee on his plant foot b/c of that stupid SF field.  

Totally agree with this. We've seen worse injuries happen under less extreme circumstances. Perhaps he did tweak his leg a bit in that game and perhaps that had something to do with it. The SF game was in week six. Prior to that game he missed two kicks. He missed a kick in that SF game. After that game he went on to miss 4 kicks. So take out the SF game and in 5 games he missed 2 kicks, then the following 10 games he missed 4. Seems like the law of averages working there.

But, as I pointed out in my other post he had issues in 2014 at the 50+ range as well. Could that be attributed to the fact that long time ace long snapper Morgan Cox was injured?

That's why I think this season can go on with him erasing those factors as he is hopefully completely healthy and so is Morgan Cox whilst remaining on the franchise tag and the issue can be revisited next off season. It is a no lose situation at that point. If he bounces back then you ink him lickity split. If he drops off to under 80% then you need to start asking some serious questions.

[EdTheMythicalOne]

  2 hours ago, Winchester said:

Agree totally!!  While he is better than cundiff he is coming off a down year. Not for paying a kicker big money Unless the team m.o. calls for a great kicker. On a defensive oriented team the kicker could decide a playoff game with a 55 yarder. But ravens are 5-11 and need to get back to the team that a kicker could decide a big playoff game. Ravens need to contend before a kicker can decide playoff games. I would favor Tucker proving himself again b4 offering him a contract that averages $4mil per or more. So to feel comfortable shelling out nearly $5mil per to a kicker he needs to reestablish himself again as a kicker that makes well over half of his kicks of 50+ yards.

Since when did making kicks 50+ yards at a percentage greater than .500 become the norm for paying a kicker as accurate as JT? 

If JT got a long term deal tomorrow averaging $4.5M a year, I wouldn't be mad at all.  He's earned and deserves it IMO. 

I think you'd be mad if he pulled a Cundiff, right?

To be fair to Tucker he is currently the 2nd most accurate kicker for his career (sample size of 4 seasons mind you) in all of the NFL, including retired players. Our hero Matt Stover ranks 18th overall, and the one year wonder Cundiff ranks 63rd.

[EdTheMythicalOne]

Just thought of this little wrinkle too. Perhaps they might want to get a look at how he does on their brand new natural turf field at home as well before making any long term investments?

[bioLarzen]

6 hours ago, BmoreB said:

There's no way to ensure making a deal they won't regret. Unless Tucker agrees to a pay per kick deal. lol

Couldn't agree more.
If there was a way for GM's to make regret-proof contracts, all contracts would be of that type.

[Halshayeji]

3 hours ago, rmcjacket23 said:

The 50+ yard distance is irrelevant to me. Last season, the average attempts of 50+ yards were 5 per team per season. 

That's the range the Ravens should be focusing on... 5 attempts at that distance. Not a league-leading 10 like we had last season. You cut the attempts down to 5, and if he only make 2-3, its not a big deal anyway.

For some added perspective...

If you add up all kicks that produce points last season (FGs + Extra Points), you have 2,204 attempts league-wide. Of those, only 160 attempts were made of 50+ yards, which is roughly 7% of all kicks. So 93% of all kicks league-wide last season occurred inside of 50 yards.

On those 93% of kicks, Tucker missed 1 last season. He was 29/30 inside of 50 yards.

I'm not concerned about his distance kicking. The team could help themselves out by not attempting 10 long FGs a season. They even attempted 9 in 2014. 

Cut it down to the league average, and you've got nothing to worry about. The accuracy alone warrants a $4-5M contract at this point.

Not often do I agree with everything you say but damn son. You are dead right on this one!

Way to put things in perspective. Of the kicks that matter, Tucker is almost flawless. He's also one of the best at keeping his kickoffs in the end zone. When one of his kicks is actually returned and has a chance.... He's the best tackling Kicker in the game. He's also perfect with the new Extra point rule. That's all just added value to me.

Pay the man! And keep the man!

[Halshayeji]

57 minutes ago, EdTheMythicalOne said:

I think you'd be mad if he pulled a Cundiff, right?

To be fair to Tucker he is currently the 2nd most accurate kicker for his career (sample size of 4 seasons mind you) in all of the NFL, including retired players. Our hero Matt Stover ranks 18th overall, and the one year wonder Cundiff ranks 63rd.

Oh lord! Don't even bring that name up around here lol

the only good thing Cundiff ever did was muff a 30 yard FG against us and helped us actually win a game. Proving that cutting him was best 

[steelcityraven]

Tucker has been solid and consistent and we saw what it was like when we didn't have a solid and consistent kicker in this league. Sign the guy... and lets look to sure up some of the other FA's for next year.

 

[mearzunkies]

  3 hours ago, Winchester said:

Agree totally!!  While he is better than cundiff he is coming off a down year. Not for paying a kicker big money Unless the team m.o. calls for a great kicker. On a defensive oriented team the kicker could decide a playoff game with a 55 yarder. But ravens are 5-11 and need to get back to the team that a kicker could decide a big playoff game. Ravens need to contend before a kicker can decide playoff games. I would favor Tucker proving himself again b4 offering him a contract that averages $4mil per or more. So to feel comfortable shelling out nearly $5mil per to a kicker he needs to reestablish himself again as a kicker that makes well over half of his kicks of 50+ yards.

The 50+ yard distance is irrelevant to me. Last season, the average attempts of 50+ yards were 5 per team per season. 

That's the range the Ravens should be focusing on... 5 attempts at that distance. Not a league-leading 10 like we had last season. You cut the attempts down to 5, and if he only make 2-3, its not a big deal anyway.

For some added perspective...

If you add up all kicks that produce points last season (FGs + Extra Points), you have 2,204 attempts league-wide. Of those, only 160 attempts were made of 50+ yards, which is roughly 7% of all kicks. So 93% of all kicks league-wide last season occurred inside of 50 yards.

On those 93% of kicks, Tucker missed 1 last season. He was 29/30 inside of 50 yards.

I'm not concerned about his distance kicking. The team could help themselves out by not attempting 10 long FGs a season. They even attempted 9 in 2014. 

Cut it down to the league average, and you've got nothing to worry about. The accuracy alone warrants a $4-5M contract at this point.

Well said !

[OzzieBisciotti]

Honestly, this team has so many holes, and as much as I like Tucker, I think we need to let him go and use the millions elsewhere to fill all the holes on our roster. Oz has no intention of paying him this year, even though Tucker is the most automatic kicker in the league- I wonder if this will create ill will towards Tucker and his camp.

[757RavensFan]

2 hours ago, Winchester said:

What happens if he is below 500 on 45-50 yard kicks. He was average this yr. Nearly $5mil a year for a kicker that's average??

He missed ONE kick that was less than 50 yards this past season!!! How the heck is that average???

[JamesA119]

  6 hours ago, Winchester said:

Agree totally!!  While he is better than cundiff he is coming off a down year. Not for paying a kicker big money Unless the team m.o. calls for a great kicker. On a defensive oriented team the kicker could decide a playoff game with a 55 yarder. But ravens are 5-11 and need to get back to the team that a kicker could decide a big playoff game. Ravens need to contend before a kicker can decide playoff games. I would favor Tucker proving himself again b4 offering him a contract that averages $4mil per or more. So to feel comfortable shelling out nearly $5mil per to a kicker he needs to reestablish himself again as a kicker that makes well over half of his kicks of 50+ yards.

The 50+ yard distance is irrelevant to me. Last season, the average attempts of 50+ yards were 5 per team per season. 

That's the range the Ravens should be focusing on... 5 attempts at that distance. Not a league-leading 10 like we had last season. You cut the attempts down to 5, and if he only make 2-3, its not a big deal anyway.

For some added perspective...

If you add up all kicks that produce points last season (FGs + Extra Points), you have 2,204 attempts league-wide. Of those, only 160 attempts were made of 50+ yards, which is roughly 7% of all kicks. So 93% of all kicks league-wide last season occurred inside of 50 yards.

On those 93% of kicks, Tucker missed 1 last season. He was 29/30 inside of 50 yards.

I'm not concerned about his distance kicking. The team could help themselves out by not attempting 10 long FGs a season. They even attempted 9 in 2014. 

Cut it down to the league average, and you've got nothing to worry about. The accuracy alone warrants a $4-5M contract at this point.

Great statistics, but what is the AFC North stats? My guess is that the percentage of 50+ yd attempts is higher than the league wide 7%. The Ravens games are usually decided by a TD or less. This margin is even smaller when they play Pittsburgh. To dismiss Tucker's performance last year - when in just a span of 1 yr he went from the most accurate kicker in history to the 3rd most accurate kicker, is not prudent. Granted the reason is the 50+ yd FGs. I am sure Ozzie and Harbaugh are not giving him any passes. When he lines up they want him to hit it. He used to hit 60+ yd FGs.
Is last year an anomaly or new norm? That's the question.
He's already tagged and I'm sure they like him however his performance from last year has given the FO pause. They probably want Tucker to prove himself again on the field; after all they have till next offseason.
No one understands and embraces this more the Tucker himself. When he has given interviews, he has talked about the need to improve and get better.

[Halshayeji]

9 hours ago, OzzieBisciotti said:

Honestly, this team has so many holes, and as much as I like Tucker, I think we need to let him go and use the millions elsewhere to fill all the holes on our roster. Oz has no intention of paying him this year, even though Tucker is the most automatic kicker in the league- I wonder if this will create ill will towards Tucker and his camp.

What holes are you talking about? You can argue we don't have enough playmakers but this is one of the deepest complete rosters we've ever had. Tell me the position and I'll name you 15 NFL teams that are worse than where we are at that position. The Ravens also have 13 million in cap space so if there is a player out there that could upgrade the squad then they can get him without the need to reduce Tucker's 4.5 million cap hit.

[VermontRaven]

I say get the deal done. Use some of that cap money we have available now (which is very rare). Load the contract up front so it is a big cap hit this year and less for future years....unless of course Ozzie has plans for the money that we don't know about...such as extending Williams, etc.

[rmcjacket23]

14 hours ago, OzzieBisciotti said:

Honestly, this team has so many holes, and as much as I like Tucker, I think we need to let him go and use the millions elsewhere to fill all the holes on our roster. Oz has no intention of paying him this year, even though Tucker is the most automatic kicker in the league- I wonder if this will create ill will towards Tucker and his camp.

And who are the quality players available that we can spend those millions on?

[rmcjacket23]

11 hours ago, JamesA119 said:

Great statistics, but what is the AFC North stats? My guess is that the percentage of 50+ yd attempts is higher than the league wide 7%. The Ravens games are usually decided by a TD or less. This margin is even smaller when they play Pittsburgh. To dismiss Tucker's performance last year - when in just a span of 1 yr he went from the most accurate kicker in history to the 3rd most accurate kicker, is not prudent. Granted the reason is the 50+ yd FGs. I am sure Ozzie and Harbaugh are not giving him any passes. When he lines up they want him to hit it. He used to hit 60+ yd FGs.
Is last year an anomaly or new norm? That's the question.
He's already tagged and I'm sure they like him however his performance from last year has given the FO pause. They probably want Tucker to prove himself again on the field; after all they have till next offseason.
No one understands and embraces this more the Tucker himself. When he has given interviews, he has talked about the need to improve and get better.

The other 3 teams in the AFC North combined for 7 attempts of 50+ yards. So we had more than the other three teams in our division combined. In 2014, it was 9 attempts for us and 9 total for the other 3 teams. None of the other AFC North opponents have attempted more than 3 50+ yard FGs in a season in the last two seasons.

The AFC North average in 2015 was actually 6.1%, so lower than the league average. And remember, that's propped up by our 10 attempts. If you count the attempts from our 3 divisional opponent, its 3.3%, less than half of the league average.

This actually makes more sense, since the weather in later half of the year isn't as good, nor do our division opponents have kickers known for stronger legs. 

To me, at then end of the day, we are really haggling over like $1M a year over like 3 years. I don't really see what the point is.

[rmcjacket23]

39 minutes ago, VermontRaven said:

I say get the deal done. Use some of that cap money we have available now (which is very rare). Load the contract up front so it is a big cap hit this year and less for future years....unless of course Ozzie has plans for the money that we don't know about...such as extending Williams, etc.

We don't need more cap space to sign Tucker. An extension would likely lower his existing cap hit.