The Baltimore Ravens will open training camp this month with Tyler Loop as the only kicker on the roster, six months after his missed 44-yard field goal in a 26-24 loss at Pittsburgh cost Baltimore the AFC North title and ended its season. ESPN’s Jamison Hensley reported Friday that the second-year kicker has spent the spring as the unchallenged occupant of the job, and that head coach Jesse Minter is comfortable keeping it that way for now.
Speaking publicly for the first time since the Jan. 4 miss, Loop told Hensley his recovery started with a simple accounting. “I would say the biggest thing I did was just acknowledge and accept it, and it took a day or two,” he said. He watched the kick once the following day, confirmed he mis-hit the ball, and has not watched it since. “I play a very factual position,” Loop said. “You either made the kick, fact, or you missed the kick, fact.”
The facts, taken together, explain both the Ravens’ patience and their caution. Loop converted 30 of 34 attempts as a rookie, an 88.2 percent success rate that led all first-year kickers with at least 10 tries. But he went 1-of-4 from beyond 50 yards and missed his only game-winning opportunity — the one in Pittsburgh. The gap between a good kicker and a championship one lives entirely in that second set of numbers. Baltimore’s roster was built to win a title last season and instead missed the playoffs for the first time since 2021, a result that cost John Harbaugh his job after 18 seasons and put Minter in charge.
The franchise has walked this road before. When Billy Cundiff hooked a 32-yarder in the 2011 AFC Championship Game, the Ravens answered by bringing in Justin Tucker to compete the following summer, and Cundiff lost the job. Asked whether a similar competition is coming, Minter didn’t rule it out. “There are ongoing talks and conversations about every position,” he said, while adding the team feels “really good” about where Loop is. He also staged his own small test at minicamp, offering to cancel post-practice meetings if Loop made a 40-yarder in front of the whole team. Loop drilled it.
A practice kick in June settles nothing, and Minter knows it. The Ravens’ first full-team practice is July 29, and the real verdict arrives whenever Loop next stands over a kick that decides a game. What Baltimore has decided, for now, is that he’s earned the chance to take it.
