Justin Tucker usually knows instantly what went wrong.
He'll watch video of a missed kick to confirm, but he has spent the past 13 seasons chasing perfection, so his senses are acutely tuned to any blip in the operation.
What he does not do is replay yesterday's mistake again and again in his mind. Tucker hooked a 53-yard attempt just outside the left upright in the Ravens' opening loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. Within minutes, his thoughts turned to the next kick.
See the ball from snapper Nick Moore's fingertips to holder Jordan Stout's hands to his foot, then finish downfield with power though the ball. That's Tucker's discipline.
"Every next kick is the one that I'm most focused on," the seven-time Pro Bowl kicker said Wednesday. "The time for reflection is after the season. While you're in it, you plow ahead. ... I am aware that I've left a few out there recently. But concerning myself with that more so than just focusing on the next kick is not going to help anybody around here."
It's unsurprising then that Tucker sees little use in dwelling on his 1-for-6 record on kicks of 50 yards or longer over the past two seasons. He's dealt with these hiccups before, going from 4-for-10 on 50-yard-plus attempts in 2015 to 10-for-10 in 2016. He sees no reason, physical or mental, why he can't make a similar leap now. It's not as if he's missing short or losing his near-perfect radar on attempts inside 50 yards (he's missed just one of those over the past two seasons).
"The very honest answer is yes, of course I think about it," he said of the recent misses. "But I can't let it affect me. I can't let it affect us. Our body of work from a long period of time shows that we've made a lot of kicks from all over the field."
"When you look at those misses, they're different," Ravens special teams coordinator Chris Horton said. "Some were 67 yards, some were at the end of games. So I don't think there's anything to be concerned about. He's in a good spot. He's still a heck of a kicker."
The world around Tucker has changed.
He set new standards for precision and power at his position. He's the most accurate kicker in history and the owner of the longest made field goal. Now, however, he's a 34-year-old man competing with a younger generation of kickers whose visions of what is possible were shaped by his achievements.
The league went 21-for-23 on field goal attempts of 50 yards or more in Week 1, a combination of force and accuracy unfathomable to the generations that preceded Tucker.
This was no anomaly. Dallas Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey made 10 of 10 attempts from 50-plus in 2023. Kansas City's Harrison Butker made five of five. Pittsburgh's Chris Boswell made six of seven.
In Tucker's rookie season of 2012, teams averaged 4.7 attempts from 50 yards or beyond and converted at a 61.7% rate. Last season, they averaged 7.2 attempts and converted at a 68% rate. Greater aggression and efficiency are hallmarks of the world he helped create.
"I would say the level of talent has increased over the years," Tucker said. "I think that's consistent across all positions. The athletes around the league are getting faster and stronger. From the jump, they're able to contribute in a significant way. That's not just kickers, but I think it's fair to point to the stats as a kicker because they are so clear-cut."
For the better part of a decade, Tucker was the reflexive choice for best kicker in the world. It's not so automatic anymore.
When Tucker watches his kicks from the previous game, he often sees himself an inch off on some movement in the intricate operation he conducts with Moore and Stout.
"There are certainly things that I can clean up," he said. "That's why I work the way that I do out at practice. That's why we work the way we do. Having an awareness of what happened on the last kick so we can work to make it a point to fix on the next one, that's always been how we operate. That's always been our standard."
He's kicked so many balls now that he has a better feel for what he can learn and what he can't from dissecting a past kick.
When everything goes right, it was the unit. When something goes awry, it was his fault. That's how Tucker the perfectionist needs to look at it. He has learned that's an ethic he shares with the great kickers who came before him, from Adam Vinatieri to Phil Dawson.
Both those guys kicked past their 40th birthdays. Has Tucker, no longer the fresh-faced rookie who helped kick the Ravens to a Super Bowl win in 2012, thought about how age might take a bite out of his talent? Will he have to tweak his preparations to compensate for older legs?
"I don't plan on changing really anything as far as adapting to the game or changing my technique," he said. "Now, if I feel like I need to, I will. But as far as changing anything just because I'm quote-unquote getting older, it's really fun for everybody to point to, 'Oh, that guy's 34. It's a miracle he's even alive in the world of professional sports.' But the way I see it is that I feel as good as I've ever felt.
"As far as my career goes, I plan on running the race as fast as I can and hitting the ribbon with as much speed and as much force and as much intent as I possibly can."
Tucker doesn't know when he'll reach said finish line, but he discusses his craft with the same verve he did in year one with the Ravens.
"As far as making any adjustments to getting older, I'm not even remotely concerned about that," he said.
So what about those longer kicks? Why have they deviled him when he knows perfectly well he can drive a ball 55 yards any day of the week?
"It should not matter if we're 45 yards away or 55 yards away," he said. "If you're 70 yards away or 65, maybe 60 when the weather turns and the ball straight up does not go as far -- unless you're dealing with something like that, you're essentially striking the ball the same way. That's what we strive for."
He compares a longer kick with a longer putt in golf. More can go wrong because the target is the same size but farther away.
"As of right now, in the very, very back of my mind, I'm thinking about how I let that 53-yarder get away from me last Thursday night," he said. "But you know what makes me feel a lot better? Going out there and just nailing a bunch of 53-yarders in practice."