A week ago, the Ravens asked their 1.9 million followers on X for questions. As part of a weekly mailbag feature, a handful would be selected by the team’s editorial staff and answered on the team’s website.

Some fans inquired about free-agent possibilities. Others wondered about offseason priorities.

Most, though, wanted answers to questions the Ravens have been careful to avoid.

“Why isn’t Justin Tucker cut,” one person wrote.

“When are you releasing a statement on Tucker,” another asked.

“I’d suggest you close the #RavensMailbag until y’all get through this Justin Tucker situation,” a third joked. The advice went unheeded; one day later, the mailbag was published. Tucker’s name was not mentioned.

On Tuesday, almost a month after The Banner first reported allegations from massage therapists accusing the Ravens kicker of sexually inappropriate behavior, the subject will be unavoidable for team officials. Ravens coach John Harbaugh and general manager Eric DeCosta are scheduled to address reporters Tuesday at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis, their first availability since the allegations surfaced.

Sixteen women at eight Baltimore-area spas have now accused Tucker of misbehavior between 2012, Tucker’s first year with the Ravens, and 2016. The allegations against Tucker include claims that he repeatedly and intentionally exposed his erect genitals, brushed two therapists with his exposed penis and, in several cases, left what appeared to be ejaculate on the massage table. Two spas have said his behavior was so egregious that he was banned from returning.

Tucker has denied any wrongdoing, issuing a lengthy statement on X last month in which he called the allegations “unequivocally false” and accused The Banner of engaging in “desperate tabloid fodder.” Tucker’s attorneys, Thomas A. Clare and Steven J. Harrison of the firm Clare Locke, also denied that he had been banned from any spas and categorically rejected the allegations.

The Ravens’ response has been less forceful. After The Banner’s first report on the allegations against Tucker, a team spokesman said the Ravens were “aware of the Baltimore Banner’s story regarding Justin Tucker as well as his response. We take any allegations of this nature seriously and will continue to monitor the situation.”

As the number of allegations accusing Tucker of sexually inappropriate behavior has more than doubled in recent weeks, the Ravens have embraced an uncomfortable silence, unwilling to comment further on the accusations or on his future in Baltimore. (If Tucker is released, he likely wouldn’t be cut until next month, when the league’s new year starts.) The team has not responded to subsequent requests for comment, and the team’s website has not reported on the allegations or the NFL’s ongoing investigation.

But some experts say the Ravens’ apparent indifference — to the nature of the allegations, to the public outcry of fans, to the mounting media scrutiny — is not only necessary but prudent.

“I think you have to serve many, many masters,” said Joe Favorito, a longtime sports marketing consultant who’s served as the vice president of public relations for the NBA’s New York Knicks and as the director of media relations for the United States Tennis Association. “I think that there are challenges when litigious situations come up that most people don’t understand. And being able to give information, when everybody is screaming at you to say, ‘I need this now,’ sometimes you have to be a really good listener and figure out when the right time is to speak and what you can say so that you don’t make situations worse.”

Some stories will test a team’s patience. In the NFL, investigations into potential violations of the league’s personal conduct policy can take months to conclude. In the meantime, Favorito said, team officials must also consider their obligations to the league, the players’ union and law enforcement, as well as their own fan base, media partners, corporate sponsors and employees.

Favorito recalled a saying from a friend of his: “When emotion comes in the door, cognition goes out the window.” He stressed the importance of making informed decisions, even when they require a deliberate approach.

“Everybody wants everything now,” Favorito said. “That’s not really the way the world works sometimes. There are plenty of tools that leagues and teams and brands use now to determine what the social atmosphere is at the time to see whether the whole forest is on fire, or whether it’s just the tree.”

In Baltimore, however, the allegations against Tucker have a deep-seated resonance. Critics have argued that his alleged conduct violates the Ravens’ zero-tolerance policy for domestic violence, which the organization put in place after running back Ray Rice was shown on video punching a woman who is now his wife in an elevator in 2014. Harbaugh himself cited the policy in 2022 when he was asked about Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson’s six-game suspension following accusations of sexual misconduct with massage therapists, saying: “Basically, we’re kind of zero tolerance.”

In March, as the NFL looked into wide receiver Zay Flowers’ role in an alleged domestic assault, Ravens team president Sashi Brown said there had been “no change in terms of our philosophy and our approach” to the team’s zero-tolerance policy. (Baltimore County Police had already closed their investigation into Flowers without charges, and the league later found “insufficient evidence” that Flowers had violated the league’s personal conduct policy.)

Favorito and Kurt Kehl, a former vice president and chief communications officer for the NHL’s Washington Capitals, said teams should make empathy a key consideration in their approach to sensitive matters. ”Frankly, that’s where everybody in the organization should be living,” Favorito said. But he added: “You also have to make sure that you’re doing the right thing and listening to everything that’s going on and making sure that you’re making the right decisions at the right time and just not making knee-jerk reactions — bad, right or indifferent.”

Kehl, who later served as the VP and chief communications officer for the Ted Leonsis-owned Monumental Sports & Entertainment — the parent company of the NBA’s Washington Wizards, the WNBA’s Washington Mystics and the Capitals — acknowledged that some team statements can seem like half measures to fans.

But a public relations “crisis,” according to Kehl, is ultimately a test of a franchise’s “reputation management” — not only because of how it gauges a team’s restraint in responding to “speculation,” Kehl said, but also because of how the crisis can shape the organization after it passes.

“The organization is bigger than any one player,” he said. “The organization is going to be around longer than any one player. Your fans — your lifelong fans — are around more than any one player. ... What you want to do is build a team that you want your fans to be proud of, but that’s not always easy.”

Winning helps with that, of course. The Ravens repeated as AFC North champions last season and advanced to the divisional round of the playoffs despite a career-worst year from Tucker, the most accurate kicker in NFL history. With quarterback Lamar Jackson and a handful of other stars set to return, the Ravens will again be considered a top Super Bowl contender next season.

Whether Tucker will join them in 2025 is unclear. The accusations against the seven-time Pro Bowl selection have jeopardized his future in Baltimore and cast a dark cloud over the Ravens’ offseason. On Tuesday, Harbaugh and DeCosta will have to answer questions that the team might still be figuring out.

“Something like this isn’t going to blow over,” Kehl said, “until there’s some sort of conclusion to it.”