Chiefs Sign Justin Tucker to Practice Squad as Butker's Struggles Continue

The Kansas City Chiefs have done the thing no team would do for a year: they signed Justin Tucker. On Wednesday, October 28, the Chiefs added the seven-time Pro Bowl kicker to their practice squad, first reported by the Kansas City Star and confirmed by multiple outlets, and head coach Andy Reid confirmed it himself rather than letting it sit as a report. Tucker has not played an NFL game since the end of the 2024 season, and he has not belonged to a team since Baltimore released him in May 2025. That a 5-1 team with a Super Bowl pedigree is reaching for him now says as much about Harrison Butker’s month as it does about Tucker’s past.

Why did Kansas City move now?

Because Butker’s misses stopped looking like a slump and started looking like a pattern. He has made 11 of 16 field goals this season, a 68.8 percent rate, and just 5 of 10 from 40 yards or longer, Reuters reports. In Sunday’s 20-3 loss to Seattle he went 1-for-3, missing from 58 and 45 yards while making one from 50, and over his last two games he is 4-for-7. That same Seahawks win had already produced a viral sideshow, Seattle’s friendship-bracelet troll of Kansas City, so the kicking problem arrived in a week when the Chiefs were already being mocked. The Chiefs explored other kicking options after that game, USA Today reports, and Tucker was the most accomplished name available. This is not a team panicking over one kick. It is a team that watched its most reliable unit become a weekly question and decided to have an answer in the building.

What did Andy Reid actually say?

Less than usual, and that restraint is doing work. Asked about the signing, Reid said: “He’s done his suspension. I’ll leave it at that.” Asked whether ownership approved the decision, he said the Chiefs try to do their homework and talk to a lot of people to make sure things are OK. On Butker, he mixed loyalty with honesty: “We love Harrison. He understands the business and how it works. He’s struggling a little bit. Butker will get most of the reps this week. It’s fluid.” The word that matters is fluid. It keeps Butker as the starter today without promising him the job on Sunday, and it keeps Tucker as insurance without dressing the signing up as a punishment. Reid also said Butker’s technique is off, which is a coach’s way of saying the problem is fixable while still admitting there is a problem.

What is Tucker’s history, stated plainly?

Tucker spent 13 seasons in Baltimore and became the second-most accurate kicker in NFL history, making 417 of 468 field goals for 89.1 percent, with five first-team All-Pro selections and a Super Bowl ring from his rookie season. He also holds the league record for the longest field goal, a 66-yarder at Detroit in 2021. Then came the part no highlight reel covers. Sixteen massage therapists in the Baltimore area accused him of sexual misconduct during sessions in the 2010s, Tucker denied the allegations, and he was never criminally charged. The NFL investigated and suspended him for the first 10 games of the 2025 season for violating its personal conduct policy. He served that suspension without a team, tried out for the Saints and Colts after it ended and again in July, tried out for the Jets in September, and went unsigned each time. Kansas City is the first team to sign him since.

Is Tucker still the kicker he was?

That is the football question underneath the controversy, and the honest answer is that nobody knows. His final Baltimore season was the worst of his career: 73.3 percent, 22-for-30, and 11 of 19 from 40 yards or longer. He turns 37 in November, he has not kicked in a regular-season game since 2024, and a practice squad signing is not a guarantee of form. What Kansas City is buying is not the 2021 version of Tucker. It is a kicker with a career record that dwarfs Butker’s current numbers, a man who has made kicks in the biggest moments, and a presence in practice that changes how every Butker miss is judged. Kansas City is not the only team churning through kickers this month either, as the Rams signed their third kicker in three weeks after an injury, a reminder that the position has become a weekly transaction across the league. The Chiefs have signed plenty of veterans before on reputation alone, as the meeting that ended with Josh Simmons being told to leave showed about how blunt this regime can be behind closed doors, and the locker room knows the difference between insurance and a message.

What does this mean for Butker?

It means his margin for error is gone, in a week when the Chiefs cannot afford a kicking problem. Kansas City, 5-1, faces Denver, 5-2, on Sunday in a divisional game that could decide the AFC West race, and Butker’s own words after Seattle suggested he knew the ground was shifting: he thanked special teams coordinator Dave Toub for having his back and said every kick matters. The irony is that Butker himself is one of the most accurate kickers ever, fifth all time at 87.3 percent, and one of the highest-paid kickers of all time, and his career arc mirrors Tucker’s in reverse. Where Tucker declined in 2024 and then disappeared, Butker has been the model of stability since 2017 and is now having the worst stretch of his career at the exact moment a legend became available. The signing has already drawn a sharp public reaction, and the Chiefs will hear it whether or not they answer it. Reid’s answer, that Tucker has done his suspension, is the only answer the club has offered so far.

What happens next?

Sunday decides the first chapter. If Butker kicks cleanly in practice and against Denver, Tucker stays a practice squad name and the story becomes a footnote about a team covering itself. If Butker misses again, especially from the 40-plus range where he is 5-for-10 this season, the elevation question arrives immediately, and no one in Kansas City will pretend otherwise. Tucker is eligible to play right away, Reuters reports, so there is no waiting period to hide behind. The Chiefs did not sign him to be a mentor or a camp body in late October. They signed him because their kicker is missing, their season is serious, and the best available alternative happened to be the most complicated one on the market after a year without a team. That tension, between a football need and a history that made 31 other teams pass for a year, is why this signing travelled further than any practice squad move should. It will also be why the next Chiefs field goal attempt, whoever takes it, gets watched more closely than any kick this season.