We are only now realizing how good the Baltimore Ravens had it.

Only now that Justin Tucker is experiencing the roughest stretch of his career — a career that still ranks among the all-time greatest kickers in NFL history — can we truly appreciate how much the absence of his greatness hurts. Kicks used to feel automatic when he trotted out on the field. Now, they’re anxiety-inducing.

Even though Tucker is the greatest scorer in Ravens history, this bye week, Baltimore needs to bring in someone who can credibly compete for his job.

Two weeks ago, coach John Harbaugh said he wouldn’t bring in competition for the kicking position, and after Sunday’s 24-19 loss — a deficit that could theoretically have been overcome if Tucker had made his two field goal misses (he also botched an extra point) — Harbaugh indicated that he’s sticking with Tucker.

“If you’re asking me, ‘Are we going to move on from Justin Tucker?’ I’m not really planning on doing that right now,” he said. “I don’t think that’d be wise. But he’ll tell you — he’ll be the first to tell you — he needs to make kicks, because he can.”

Unfortunately, we’ve reached the point where Tucker is so unreliable, his attempts so nail-biting, that the Ravens have to bring in somebody to at least challenge him. If Tucker wins the competition, so be it, but the Ravens have to force those survival instincts to — pardon the phrase — boot in.

How can we take this franchise’s playoff ambitions seriously if they don’t?

“Anytime we lose — especially, for me, given my performance today, it was just not up to our standard — it’s crushing,” Tucker said. “But at the end of the day, my feelings don’t really matter.”

We may all have to swallow our feelings about Tucker, one of the most beloved Ravens ever, as we look at the facts.

It is admittedly surreal to reach this point with the 35-year-old Tucker, the last Ravens player from the Super Bowl LXVII squad. Earlier in November, I argued in this space that Tucker deserved a chance to straighten himself out — to find a way forward as he has throughout an amazing career. After all, he was the precursor to a generation of ultra-reliable, cannon-legged kickers who have changed the definition of “field goal range” in the modern game.

You have to believe that a man who set the standard for place kickers, with years still to go for the best of the best, will find a way to meet that standard again, I wrote.

But when I defended Tucker, I imagined that we were witnessing a wobble, a bit of turbulence that would correct with time. Maybe that interpretation was colored by sentimentality.

I didn’t grasp we were watching the beginning of a nosedive.

Because that sure seems like that’s what this is: a sudden decline of one of the greatest place kickers ever. In the last three games, Tucker has missed four of his eight attempts. He’s missed four or fewer kicks in eight of his 13 NFL seasons. He’s also missed two extra points in the last four weeks. He never missed both a field goal and an extra point in the same game ... until Sunday against the Eagles.

He’s now 19 for 27 on field goals this season, one of the lowest accuracy marks in the NFL — and the most kicks he’s ever missed in a season (his previous high was 7 in 2015). It was disheartening to see fans booing when Tucker missed his second 53-yard attempt in the third quarter, but given what he’s done on the field this season, they aren’t wrong to disapprove.

It would still be alarming if the Ravens were winning. But the truly damning thing is that they’re not. Tucker has missed a field goal attempt in all five of the Ravens’ losses. In three of those defeats — the Raiders, the Steelers and the Eagles — Baltimore would have tied or had the lead if he had made those missed attempts, the literal difference between winning and losing (in fact, the Ravens have lost those games by a combined 22 points; Tucker’s misses in those games have amounted to ... yes, 22 points).

“I feel like I cost us this one,” Tucker said on Sunday night. But it’s not just this one.

Aside from his most recent miss, every single one of these misses has gone wide left, indicative of an error that Tucker can’t stop repeating. When he kept going left early in the season, Tucker and the Ravens chalked it up to a vague “technique issue” that they understood. The fact that it has continued is now evidence against Tucker, an indication that he’s struggling to self-correct — or that his problem is something else entirely.

His week-by-week reasoning that “each kick lives on its own” doesn’t hold water when almost every miss looks pretty darn similar. While he claimed he wasn’t trying to adjust for drifting left, his 50-yarder that he made before halftime was close to the right upright, and Tucker’s face still had a perturbed expression even though it went through.

The decline doesn’t necessarily have to do with his age. Several great kickers have played well into their 40s. Maybe Tucker will, too. But how can the Ravens, who are losing their bid for another division crown to the Steelers, give him more freedom to fix it on his own?

We can’t lay everything at Tucker’s right foot, of course. The Ravens weren’t particularly sharp, and special teams has been a consistent disappointment week after week. Jordan Stout left punts short. Tylan Wallace nearly coughed up a punt return.

Tucker is merely the most visible, most surprising aspect of the Ravens’ regression in a phase they historically dominate. But as much as any facet, the bad kicks require immediate rectification. If Tucker costs Baltimore one more game, it seems feasible — maybe even probable — that the Ravens kick him to the curb this offseason.

Trust me — even imagining Tucker losing his job curdles my insides. It feels wrong on an elemental level. More than any one person, he has personified special teams excellence for this franchise.

Some of the best kickers often do their best work in relative anonymity, but some of Tucker’s best career moments are the clutch, extra-long, no-time-left kicks that helped him transcend one of the NFL’s least-respected positions and endeared him to this region.

Many of his teammates said they supported him — Lamar Jackson as fiercely as anyone.

“He’s the G.O.A.T., still,” Jackson said. “Just gotta get back to who he is. … Hell yeah, I have confidence [in Tucker].”

That’s what we’re asking for. That fiery competitiveness needs to be relit in Justin Tucker — not just for a win, but for his job. If he can find that side of himself, if the Ravens can get back their G.O.A.T., that’s the best ending anyone can ask for.

But one way or another, it feels like an ending to this unfortunate saga is approaching.

Here’s hoping it doesn’t swing left.