John Harbaugh Shares Progress of Ravens Rookie Kickers

For the first time in over a decade, the Baltimore Ravens have an open competition at kicker following the release of seven-time Pro Bowl veteran Justin Tucker earlier this offseason.

The two players battling it out to be the future Hall of Fame specialist's successor are a couple of rookies in 2025 sixth-rounder Tyler Loop out of Arizona and undrafted free agent signee John Hoyland out of Wyoming.

After getting a look at both first-year pros in action at rookie minicamp, the Ravens were confident enough in both of them to make the decision to sign Hoyland to the roster and move on from Tucker who was coming off the worst season of his career in 2024 and is still facing over a dozen allegations of sexual misconduct.

Since that time, the Ravens got to see plenty of both competing in practice during Organized Team Activities and mandatory minicamp. Now that the offseason program is officially in the books, they have liked what they've seen from them thus far and look forward to their fierce competition continuing in training camp and the preseason.

"[Tyler] is a really good athlete," Ravens head coach John Harbaugh said. "He has body control, and he can make adjustments from a coaching standpoint and so can John. They're both doing a good job with that and actually pick it up really quickly. [Tyler] is just kind of a natural athlete, so he's picking it up quick. Now it's just a matter of doing it over and over again, and yes, he's done a good job of that."

What made Tucker so great and become regarded as the best kicker of all time wasn't just because he holds the mantle for the most accurate ever and has the record for the longest successful attempt in NFL history. The biggest factor that separated him from the pack of the rest of the elite kickers was his ability to be consistently reliable in the clutch where the stake and pressure on him were at their highest.

While there is no substitute for an actual high-pressure moment in a real game of consequence, the Ravens did their best to simulate those scenarios in practice for the two young kickers, especially during minicamp when the whole team was in attendance.

"There is the idea of repetition and being able to replicate the swing, and [senior special teams coach] Randy [Brown] works on that with those guys all the time," Harbaugh said. "They're down there, [and] just putting the numbers up, and those are all charted and graphed and everything else. And then, you get into the situations, and the team situation is one thing, then the game scenarios are the next thing where they have to run out and make it like a game."

According to a report from the PressBox's Bo Smolka, on the first day of mandatory minicamp, Loop had an uneven performance during a high-pressure drill, missing a pair of kicks inside of 50 yards but bounced back by making another pair from 40-plus yards out while Hoyland went a perfect 4-of-4 in the drill. The following day, both kickers went 3-of-4 per Smolka with each missing an attempt from over 60 yards.