Justin Tucker packed up his locker and joked with teammates Sam Koch and Morgan Cox after Sunday's 14-6 victory over the Cleveland Browns.
The second-year kicker had just come off his worst outing, missing two field goals for the first time of his NFL career, but was still relaxed after his team pulled off the victory. Tucker took responsibility for the misses and credited his teammates for picking up his slack. He also stressed that he's confident moving forward.
"I'm not really worried," Tucker said. "We go to work tomorrow. We go to work Wednesday. And then it's on to the next one."
Tucker, who missed just three field goals all of last season, missed wide right from 50 and 44 yards. Both misses came in the first half, and they were his only attempts on the day. Tucker was visibly frustrated after his second attempt, and he slammed his helmet to the turf as he took a seat on the bench.
Tucker has previously never missed back-to-back kicks.
The rough day happened to coincide with former Ravens kicker Billy Cundiff's return to Baltimore, who was perfect on the day. Cundiff, who lost the kicking job to Tucker before last season, made his field-goal attempts of 21 and 51 yards.
"The fact of the matter is that I missed two, and I missed two in a row, and that's uncharacteristic," Tucker said. "But if you play long enough you're going to experience ups like we experienced last season, and you're going to experience downs as well. At the end of the day you have to have an on-to-the-next-one' attitude to survive in this league."
Tucker said that he missed the two field goals for different reasons. He hit the first kick poorly, and the second had the aiming point wrong to account for the wind.
"The first ball, I mis-hit," Tucker said. "Then the second one I actually felt like I hit pretty well. Really all I needed to do was play the breeze a little bit better and have a little bit better plan. When I hit the ball it stuck to its initial line. I really don't feel like I mis-hit that ball at all. It just kind of sailed right on me a little bit."
Head Coach John Harbaugh said that Tucker "overthought it a little bit" on the second attempt, and that he accounted for the wind a little too much.
"I think he was trying to guide it through the wind rather than knocking it through the wind," Harbaugh said. "He didn't follow through with his usual assuredness there."
The Ravens overcame the miscues and were still able to come away with the win Sunday, and Tucker's focus now is to get ready for next week's game against the Houston Texans.
"Where I personally fell short today, the rest of our team did a great job picking up for where I was lacking in the point department," Tucker said. "I've got a lot of guys to look to as far as bouncing back, so I'm not worried about a thing."
