As last Christmas approached, Angela Hester had an idea. She wanted to get something special for her sister, a big Ravens fan. So she made a poster board plastered with a photo of her sister’s three favorite players.

Rashod Bateman. Kyle Hamilton. And Justin Tucker.

“So now that’s just no good anymore,” Angela, a Ravens fan herself, said Tuesday. She chuckled, almost in resignation.

One day earlier, the Ravens had released Tucker, a seven-time Pro Bowl kicker and the last remaining player from the team’s Super Bowl XLVII-winning roster, sending shockwaves across a fan base still grappling with the accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior against him. In a statement, general manager Eric DeCosta called it a “football decision” that was “incredibly difficult.” The statement did not acknowledge the NFL’s investigation into Tucker’s alleged conduct at eight Baltimore-area spas and wellness centers, including claims that he repeatedly and intentionally exposed his erect genitals during massage sessions.

Tucker’s sudden departure has become a Rorschach test for Ravens fans, who before his miserable 2024 knew him mostly as the most accurate kicker in NFL history and a minor folk hero in Baltimore. But, for some women in the fan base, the breakup has taken on a more complicated resonance. Was Tucker’s release a necessary bit of business for a franchise that couldn’t afford the bad press? Or did it reflect a broader tolerance from Ravens officials of talented, if troubled, players?

“Even though everybody has been expecting it,” Hester, 39, of Baltimore, said of Tucker’s release, “it still doesn’t mean that, deep down, it doesn’t suck for what he has done for the team and how huge he was in the Super Bowl run. And it’s just a shame.”

Ravens fan Angela Hester, second from right, with, from left, her brother, David, her sister, Kimberly, and a friend, Crystal, at a game.

Sixteen massage therapists have accused Tucker of inappropriate sexual behavior from 2012, his rookie year in Baltimore, to 2016. Two businesses told The Banner they banned Tucker from returning. Tucker has denied any wrongdoing and said he was never banned from any spas.

Some female fans interviewed by The Banner this week aren’t sure what to believe. Hester acknowledged the NFL’s investigation is ongoing but said that “all evidence is pointing to him being a horrible person.”

Kerry Clarke, 29, a North Carolina-based supporter and Howard County native, was a huge Tucker fan and said she initially hoped the allegations were untrue, but that she’s “disappointed and kind of disgusted.”

Janet Eichhorn, 63, of Ellicott City said she’s been reading articles from various outlets to make an informed opinion. She estimated that she’s “80%” of the way there, but she needs the investigation results for closure.

“I’m not saying it didn’t happen,” she said. “I’m just saying we don’t have the full story.”

She also has lots of questions.

“Why’d they take so much time [to make their allegations]? And I understand … trauma takes time to work out. Sixteen of them? C’mon, dude. But, at the same time, why did it stop hard-core in 2016? So that’s a little weird, too.”

Jennie Herb, a 44-year-old massage therapist from Baltimore, said she found DeCosta’s praise for Tucker — and silence about the allegations — disappointing. A longtime Ravens fan, Herb said her enthusiasm for the team has waned recently.

“I can’t say I’m feeling super excited about the team,” she said. “I’m not following the draft. I’m not following anything in the offseason. There’s a dark cloud on it for me right now.”

Like many massage therapists in the Baltimore region, Herb said she had known about the allegations against Tucker long before The Banner’s reporting. She had worked with two of the therapists who said Tucker acted inappropriately with them.

Herb said it’s been frustrating to see people dismiss the allegations or accuse the therapists of seeking a payout, even though legal experts say the statute of limitations to file a criminal or civil suit against Tucker has long passed.

“People are still making happy-ending jokes on these threads or saying, ‘Oh, it’s not that big a deal,’” Herb said. “And then I see people [on social media] say, ‘Why didn’t they come out [with these allegations] immediately?’ It’s because people like you don’t believe them!”

Other fans have taken issue with the team’s mixed messaging. Ravens president Sashi Brown said in March that the team wouldn’t decide on Tucker’s future until after the NFL investigation. But, after the Ravens drafted kicker Tyler Loop in the sixth round last month, coach John Harbaugh said Sunday that “every decision” the team would make about the position “has to be based on football.”

“At the same time, I feel like the Ravens wouldn’t have released him if there weren’t sufficient evidence” of Tucker’s alleged misconduct, said Joselyn Johnson, 52, a Baltimore County resident. She said she was initially skeptical of the allegations against him. “He’s a Hall of Famer, and that can’t be denied.”

A Ravens poster featuring, from left, wide receiver Rashod Bateman, kicker Justin Tucker and safety Kyle Hamilton that Ravens fan Angela Hester gave to her sister, Kimberly, last Christmas.

Tucker’s fall from grace comes only 11 years after TMZ published surveillance footage of running back Ray Rice, another fan favorite, hitting a woman, now his wife, in an elevator. The incident led to Rice’s release and indefinite suspension, and a reckoning with domestic violence across the league and in Baltimore. Then-Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome pledged to avoid signing and drafting players with domestic violence incidents in their past.

In 2022, when Harbaugh was asked about Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson’s six-game suspension following accusations of sexual misconduct with massage therapists, he referred to the team’s policy and said the Ravens were “kind of zero tolerance.”

But Rice has since been welcomed back as a team ambassador, and was brought onto the field as a “Legend of the Game” at the end of the 2023 season.

And as scrutiny of the Ravens’ policy intensified in the wake of the allegations against Tucker, along with a since-suspended police investigation into an alleged domestic assault involving wide receiver Zay Flowers, the team said in February that it had never formalized a hard-line approach.

“Each situation stands on its own,” the Ravens said in a statement. “Actions will be determined after the facts are known.”

Some fans were disappointed by the team’s backtracking. Eichhorn said the initial policy itself was unwise. “You really shouldn’t use extreme language like that. ... Because the reality, as we all know, [is that] there are degrees.”

Hester said Harbaugh’s 2022 comment “doesn’t look good for him.”

Others criticized the Ravens for their flippant approach to alleged misbehavior toward women.

“It just feels that they’re trying to make themselves a loophole, almost, now that this has happened,” said Clarke, who encouraged the Ravens to clarify their expectations for player conduct, but has otherwise approved of how they have handled Tucker.

Said Reeta Hubbard, 49, a Baltimore resident and co-host on 105.7 The Fan: “The Ravens have put themselves on a pedestal, and now they have to deal with the consequences of putting themselves on said pedestal.”

Ravens fan Reeta Hubbard at the 2023 NFL playoffs at M&T Bank Stadium.

Tucker’s release has not allayed some fans’ concerns about the Ravens’ team-building approach. Last month, in the second round of the draft, the team took outside linebacker Mike Green, a first-round talent who was reportedly off several teams’ boards because of two allegations of sexual assault. Green said at the NFL scouting combine in February that he faced one such accusation in high school and another from an “anonymous report” at the University of Virginia.

Green, who was never charged, has denied the allegations. DeCosta said the Ravens felt comfortable taking Green after vetting him and meeting with him during the predraft process.

One of the women who told The Banner in January that Tucker had acted inappropriately with her in 2015 said she was furious over Green’s selection. “I feel like I’m living in ‘The Twilight Zone,’” said the woman, who was granted anonymity for this story to protect her privacy. She said powerful organizations, including the Ravens, seem to be increasingly ignoring allegations of sexual assault.

“This is a guy that you probably would have stayed away from,” Hubbard said of Green. “Yet, all of a sudden, you’re like, ‘We need a pass rusher. This guy is probably our best player available. He obviously slipped because of these allegations. We’re just going to take the chance.’ And, if you choose to do that, that’s your right, but when you say things on the record like ‘zero-tolerance policy,’ people absolutely have the right to ask you, ‘Well, does this mean that this is not zero tolerance anymore?’”

Some women said the Ravens needed to show more sensitivity toward their growing female fan base.

“I do think that of course business comes first, but they also have to be mindful that a large portion of their base is women who feel very strongly about this,” Hester said, referring to the allegations against Tucker. “And not even just women, honestly, but it can certainly isolate a certain portion of your fan base and can eventually lead to people not wanting to support the team.”

Hester and her sister have already decided to ditch their Tucker jerseys and take down their Tucker paraphernalia. Other fans this week were looking ahead to the 2025 season, when the Ravens could have their strongest team in years, even without Tucker.

This offseason, the women acknowledged, has been a challenging one, forcing them to reconcile their fandom with their own morality.

“It’s something that I think I struggle with on a regular basis,” Hubbard said. “People are problematic. It is never black and white. It’s always gray. And, yes, do I want this team to be a Super Bowl champion? Absolutely, particularly with Lamar Jackson at the helm. But do I also want them to be problem free and upstanding citizens? Yes. I realize that the reality of both of those things happening is not great. Sometimes people are bad people. But I think that there has to be a line in terms of what it is that you are able to accept.”