Through the many ups and few downs of his career, Justin Tucker has always had the same refrain.
"We make kicks. I sometimes miss kicks," he says, sharing the praise of his illustrious career with the operation around him.
Not once has Tucker said long snapper Nick Moore or holder Jordan Stout need to do anything different, but they each know the misses fall on the entire unit.
"I think we're doing all we can each time to go out there and do our job. And that's all three of us – me, Nick, and Justin," Stout said. "Justin said it before, we work as a unit. There's never going to be one person that's singled out, and that's just how we are.
"I feel like when he misses, I miss too. That's how I feel about it. We are one."
Tucker has now missed seven kicks this season – six field goals and an extra point – and is coming off a two-miss game in Pittsburgh where the Ravens lost by two points. Tucker now has more misses than he did all of last season and his seven total misses, including extra points, ties a career high.
Tucker continues to shoulder all of the blame, but those around him know they're a collective unit.
"[Tucker] does a really good job of not passing blame on anybody and taking accountability for when things go awry, but like I said, the three of us are a unit, so yeah, we can all do something better," Moore said.
"Obviously, we know we can make those kicks, and we're supposed to make those kicks [to] help our team win a game. And I think from top to bottom everything starts with me, so I can always do a better job getting more consistent snap."
All of Tucker's misses this season have been wide left, which has been a theme around the NFL this season. Eagles kicker Jake Elliott missed three kicks wide left last week and five of the six missed field goals from the Bengals' Evan McPherson have been to the left.
After misfiring on his first two attempts Sunday, Tucker drilled a 54-yarder by aiming further to the right.
"It's our job to adjust for that, and since we know that, then we need to aim more right or just adjust in situations, and I think that's what we're kind of working towards," Stout said.
Missing kicks has not been common around Baltimore. Tucker has been as steady as they come for the past decade-plus. That's what has made this season so surprising, but everyone around him believes things will get back on track.
"Tuck's just been so consistent for so long everyone's kind of panicking a little bit but there's no panic in our group," Moore said. "We're just going to keep doing what we've always done here and continue to give our team the best chance to win."
"It shows that everyone's human," Stout added. "Nobody's perfect. Nobody. I told him yesterday, he's going to come out of this and he's going to be a hundred times the person and the kicker then he was before and he's going to be that much greater."
The Ravens have at least six games remaining this season, and Tucker surely has some high-leverage kicks on the horizon. Head Coach John Harbaugh expressed his faith in Tucker going forward, and Tucker said he wants to reward that.
And right now, there's confidence from Tucker's unit that he will back up his word.
"There's nobody alive or dead that I'd rather have kicking the ball for us," Moore said. "He gives us the best chance to make every kick that we have and some kicks that a lot of other teams don't have so you know he's been around the league a long time he's played in a lot of games he's made a lot of big-time kicks and there's nobody else I'd rather have on my team."
