With Justin Tucker, the Baltimore Ravens are the latest NFL team to face scandal over accusations of impropriety during the course of therapeutic massage sessions. This is not their first major scandal by any means, with Ray Lewis and Ray Rice coming to mind. After the Rice scandal, they claim, they installed a “zero tolerance” policy with players and their conduct.
A few years ago, the Cleveland Browns gave them the opportunity to get on their high horse. Amid the talk about QB Deshaun Watson, they broadcast the existence of this known publicly. Little did they know that Justin Tucker would make the Ravens’ zero-tolerance policy very relevant.
During the NFL Scouting Combine, GM Eric DeCosta fielded numerous questions on the matter. Asked directly if Justin Tucker could be terminated by the Ravens due to their zero-tolerance policy, he said that “a lot goes into that”.
Asked for elaboration, it became clear that—well, things weren’t so clear. Following DeCosta’s responses about Tucker, the Ravens issued a statement clarifying that there is no actual “written, definitive zero-tolerance policy”. In other words, there isn’t actually a zero-tolerance policy, if they judge things on a case-by-case basis.
Yet DeCosta, asked if he regrets saying the Ravens had a policy of zero tolerance, said, “absolutely not”. Now, that doesn’t mean that if such a formal policy existed Justin Tucker would be on the street right now. At the moment, there are merely allegations—from 16 massage therapists—against him. Mere allegations are not enough to warrant somebody losing their job.
“We are fortunate that the league is doing an investigation. We’ll wait as patiently as we can for as much information as we can, and we’ll make our decisions based on that”, DeCosta said. But he later admitted that he could not outline what the Ravens’ zero-tolerance policy is.
In terms of the timeline, the Baltimore Banner received tips about the matter in the first half of January, and the story came out weeks later. There doesn’t appear to be any evidence that the Ravens knew of anything substantial about Justin Tucker prior to that. But their policy of zero tolerance will be put to the test, depending on how this thing goes.
The Ravens didn’t have a problem showing zero tolerance to Ray Rice, who appeared to be at the end of his career; Justin Tucker last season looked to be slipping substantially as well. Unless he was blackmailed or warned about the allegations coming out during the season, his poor performance can’t be blamed on that.
In other words, it might suit the Ravens just fine once again to ride their high horse and tout their zero-tolerance policy by axing Justin Tucker if things turn out the wrong way. They may have been prepared to move on from him as a player anyway. For now, though, DeCosta says it’s a matter of waiting to see how things play out.
“That’s something we have to find out”, he said when asked how the Ravens’ zero-tolerance policy applies to Tucker. “That’s what the review is for – to gain an understanding of what we’re even talking about. Then, you take the situation for what it is, but the principle is the same. How you define that principle, that term a little bit and how…Maybe we’ll come out and make a definition of that at some point in time. That’s something that would be interesting to me. I think everybody understands the idea there, and let’s see where the review takes us”.
