John Harbaugh thinks the NFL should let Justin Tucker score more points

The NFL keeps trying to make the game more exciting by changing the parameters of kicking, and Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh thinks the league can take it one step further by awarding points for any kick that goes through the uprights.

Of course, Harbaugh’s kicker, Justin Tucker, has a big leg and could probably add a lot of points to the scoreboard for the Ravens that way.

“He had a kickoff go through the uprights,” Harbaugh said via the team’s website. “I’m on record as advocating that that should [count as] a point.”

Tucker has the leg to get the ball through the uprights from significant distances. He hit a 57-yard field goal in Baltimore’s 19-14 win over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday like it was nothing.

It was one of three field goals longer than 50 yards that Tucker successfully completed on Sunday. He has not missed a single kick this season.

Tucker said that while the league continues to make the game more challenging for kickers in an effort to make it more exciting for fans, they could compensate for that by giving kickers the opportunity to tack on some additional points here and there.

“I think eventually we are going to keep making the game harder for kickers, then you have to reward us in some way,” Tucker said. “The ownership and the competition committee and the NFL are great at this give-take thing when CBA time comes around. Maybe we can throw that one out there.

“I would certainly really appreciate that. Especially on a day like today, when you’re playing a close game and a division rival, you want any points you can get. They are hard to come by, and if you can get them like that, then I’m all for it.”

Tucker has scored 96 of Baltimore’s 218 points so far this season. That’s 44 percent of the Ravens’ scoring so far, and with just a tweak of the rules to award points for kickoffs that go through the uprights, Tucker could add even more to that total.