Sports

The NFL has suspended free agent kicker Justin Tucker for the first 10 weeks of the 2025 regular season for violating the league's personal conduct policy, the league announced Thursday.

The Ravens cut Tucker on May 5, designating him as a post-June 1 release for cap reasons.

Sixteen massage therapists from eight high-end Baltimore-area spas have accused Tucker of sexual misconduct. All of the alleged misconduct reportedly occurred between 2012-16.

Tucker has denied all allegations, and he has described the Baltimore Banner's reporting as "desperate tabloid fodder."

With the length of Tucker's suspension now known, Tucker could seek to find work late this season when he's reinstated.

Tucker, though, is coming off the worst season of his 13-year career. He missed 10 total kicks in 2024, with his 73.3 conversion rate on field goals ranking 31st in the NFL.

Tucker, 35, was on a Hall of Fame trajectory with seven Pro Bowls and a 90.2 conversion rate on his field goal attempts in his first 12 seasons. He holds the NFL record for the longest field goal, kicking a 66-yard game-winner in 2021.

Tucker signed a four-year, $22 million contract extension in August 2022, making him the league's highest-paid kicker at the time.

The NFL was caught with its hand in the collusion cookie jar, as to the issue of fully-guaranteed contracts for players. And even though the arbitrator erroneously accepted the NFL's position that it was eating no collusion cookies, the NFL apparently has learned from the experience.

The historical collusion/coordination extends beyond players. For years, it has been believed that owners collude regarding coaching pay, keeping the salaries down in the absence of a union or a salary cap. Apparently, they were coordinating/colluding elsewhere.

Per multiple sources, the NFL has shared on an annual basis salary data for every non-player position — from head coach to G.M. to area scouts to dietician to assistant athletic trainer. The league broke the information down by listing the high, the low, the median, and the average for every job in every NFL team.

This year, that ended. And the official position is that the information is no longer being provided for legal reasons.

It's smart. Previously, it was dumb. Compiling and providing salary data among 32 independent businesses is per se coordination/collusion. And the league has been susceptible to an antitrust claim (or class action) from non-player employees impacted by the effort to limit competition for employee services.

Of course, the unavailability of the spreadsheet doesn't mean the practice of coordination/collusion has ended. The league is simply making it harder to prove it by eliminating what would be clear and obvious evidence of collusion.