The New York Jets put Justin Tucker on a practice field in Florham Park on Wednesday. That fact alone tells you more about their kicking situation than any press release ever will.
They claimed Blake Grupe off waivers Monday. They brought Jason Sanders back to the practice squad a day later after releasing him for missing an extra point and a field goal in the preseason finale. Then they hosted Tucker, Michael Badgley, and Josh Karty for workouts with no signing imminent and Grupe framed as the Week 1 favorite against Tennessee. I have watched enough special-teams collapses to know what this sequence means. The Jets do not trust the room they already built.
This offseason they have already signed and cut Lenny Krieg, Will Ferrin, Younghoe Koo, Cade York, and Sanders. Five names. Nick Folk left for Atlanta in March. The board is still empty two weeks from the opener. Working out an eight-time All-Pro who has not appeared in an NFL game since 2024 is not a character referendum. It is due diligence from a franchise that keeps failing the most replaceable job on the roster.
The 73.3 Percent Problem Is Real and Recent
Tucker’s career line still looks like a Hall of Fame résumé: 89.1 percent on field goals (417 of 468), seven Pro Bowls, Super Bowl champion as a rookie, NFL 2010s All-Decade. He once owned the longest field goal in league history. Those numbers are why his name still moves the needle when a team is desperate.
His last season does not. In 2024 with Baltimore he hit 22 of 30 field goals — 73.3 percent, the worst mark of his career and second-worst among kickers with at least 30 attempts that year. He also missed two extra points. The Ravens released him in May 2025. He worked out for the Saints and Colts after reinstatement eligibility and neither signed him. Age 36 with a full year away from live kicks is not the same leg that once made 66-yarders look routine. Distance and accuracy both regress when the reps disappear. I keep coming back to that 73.3 percent number because it is the only recent film that exists.
Grupe spent the final five games of 2025 in Indianapolis after the Saints cut him. Badgley has 73 career games and a solid if unspectacular track record. Karty has 25. None of them carry Tucker’s historical ceiling. None of them carry his current floor either. The Jets are shopping for a floor that does not collapse in September.
The Suspension Clock Already Ran
According to reporting from The Baltimore Banner that the NFL investigated, 16 massage therapists across eight spas accused Tucker of sexually inappropriate behavior during sessions dating to 2012–2016. The league suspended him for the first 10 games of the 2025 season for violating the personal conduct policy. No criminal charges were filed. Tucker did not appeal.
His public response on the day of the initial report was absolute: “The allegations in The Baltimore Banner article about me are unequivocally false.” He added that he had “never before been accused of misconduct of any kind” and called the piece “desperate tabloid fodder.” His agent later said he wanted to “put this difficult episode behind him and get back on the field as soon as possible.” He served the suspension as a free agent and has not been on an NFL roster since the Ravens cut him.
That is the full public ledger. The Jets are not required to ignore a kicker who has completed the league’s discipline and remains unsigned. They are also not required to pretend the optics vanish when the whistle blows. Every organization that brings him in will face the same calculation: production versus the cost of explaining the decision to a locker room and a fan base that already watches every special-teams snap under a microscope. I do not see a long-term fit here. I see a short-term insurance policy for a team that has already burned through five options and still does not like the sixth.
Aaron Glenn’s staff will evaluate the leg first. That is the correct order of operations for a kicker tryout. The rest of the conversation travels with Tucker whether anyone wants it to or not. Grupe gets the real shot at Week 1 because the Jets said so. Tucker goes home unless someone misses enough kicks to reopen the door. The Jets still do not have a kicker they can trust past October, and that is the only number that actually moved them to schedule the workout.
