Tyler Loop is ready to make the next kick with the same process, the same confidence as last year

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If Tyler Loop is on the Ravens sidelines during a cold January game with the playoffs on the line and his name gets called to make a field goal, his process will look exactly as it did five months ago.

Going out onto that field in Pittsburgh, he was confident he’d make the kick. He didn’t, but his confidence in his process remains the same.

“My process hasn’t broken,” Loop said. “There may have been a hiccup or something that went wrong. And you need to be able to look at that, address it and then say, all right, I’m good.”

In that quiet locker room in Pittsburgh, Loop showed signs of his mettle as the rookie faced the media minutes after the most prominent mistake any Raven made last season.

Then he shared his appreciation for the city and the team before acknowledging his desire to be better.

“Those guys have had my back, and I want to try my best to have theirs,” Loop said. “It’s disappointing and it sucks, but also the nature of the job is I have to move on and I have to get ready for the next kick.”

He was upset, but his then-coaches and teammates felt he’d recover.

On a muggy day in June, it seemed Loop had.

Immediately following that missed field goal, Loop watched it back to see what went wrong. He gave himself a day or two to get over it. He hasn’t watched it since.

Moving on from the kick was easy, he said. The bigger challenge was convincing those who love him that he was OK.

“It’s hard to understand, from an outside perspective, the amount of confidence and the amount of work that I have in the process we’ve developed and my ability to kick a football,” Loop said. “I think some people can’t quite grasp that, until you let them know, I’m good. I’ve been doing this for years, and I feel really comfortable that, if I went out there, I’d make it.”

As Loop moved on from the kick, the Ravens moved on from John Harbaugh.

Team owner Steve Bisciotti said the coaching change was coming whether Loop made the kick or not. Nonetheless, fans blamed — or thanked — Loop for getting Harbaugh fired.

Loop said he didn’t let that faze him.

“We talk about focus on what you can control,” Loop said. “And all I can control for myself is a process, taking care of my mental [approach] and getting close to the people that care about me, being close to my teammates, and just continually, like we talk about now, be your best.”

Loop shut out the outside noise, so much so that kickers around the league had to have their wives reach out to his fiancée to share their encouraging messages.

He focused on what was important, such as marrying said fiancée, enjoying their honeymoon and honing his kicking process.

Loop returned to a different coaching staff, but the special teams staff looks much the same. The new coordinator, Anthony Levine, was promoted from last year’s staff, and the specialist coach who scouted him, Randy Brown, remains on staff.

Loop has the support of his new coach, Jesse Minter, as well.

“I thought he had a really good rookie year overall, but of course you’re judged by some of the biggest moments,” Minter said. However, Minter said he wanted every player to have a clean slate with his arrival.

Although the coaches have talked about bringing in competition for Loop, it has been no more than they have talked about for other positions, Minter said.

It’s hard to simmulate in practice the pressure of a moment like the one in Pittsburgh, but Minter is trying to set Loop up for success by making sure something hinges on him making the kick. Wednesday, Minter said, he’d cancel post-practice meetings if Loop made the 40-yarder.

Loop stepped up to the line and then back before taking the swing in the same way he always has.

“I looked at [holder] Ryan [Eckley], looked at Coach Minter, and I was like, all right, get ready to go home,” Loop said.

The sidelines erupted in cheering, and home they went.