Ravens kicker Justin Tucker suffers through first-half double doink
Justin Tucker #JustinTucker
With the Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens playing Saturday night to punch their own ticket to the AFC Championship Game, the stakes couldn’t be much higher. But beyond trying to beat one another in the NFL playoffs, both teams have had to contend with another opponent: the uncooperative weather at Bills Stadium in Orchard Park, New York. The swirling winds have played mayhem with the kicking game, costing both teams points, but they have had a particular impact on four-time All-Pro kicker Justin Tucker of the Ravens.
Tucker’s reputation is known leaguewide — he’s as near automatic as kickers come. He made 26 of 29 field goal attempts this regular season, going 11-for-12 in the playoffs in his career before this year’s NFL postseason. But after missing on one of three attempts against the Titans in the first round of the playoffs, things got worse for Tucker in Buffalo.
In the first half against the Bills, Tucker missed his first two attempts, hitting the left upright from 41 yards in the first quarter, and then from 46 yards in the second quarter, Tucker hit the right upright. He finally redeemed himself at the end of the first half with a 34-yard field goal.
His fellow place-kickers watching had nothing but sympathy for him trying to deliver in these conditions:
But NFL players past and present were also watching and worried about what this might mean for whether Tucker would be jinxed, and what this might mean for the Ravens’ playoff hopes with the goalposts visibly swaying in the strong winds: