When Tyler Loop was walking to the Ravens' team bus to drive to Huntington Bank Field in Cleveland, the wind tossed his backwards hat about 20 yards off his head.
After Loop retrieved his hat, he stepped onto the bus and made eye contact with Head Coach John Harbaugh, who saw it happen. Harbaugh made a little "huh" sound.
Not much needed to be said. They both knew it was going to be one of those tough kicking days in Cleveland.
"I was like, 'Let's go,'" Loop said on "The Lounge" podcast.
The rookie kicker drilled all three of his field-goal attempts and both extra points, including a clutch 44-yarder with five minutes left in the fourth quarter to tie the game.
Loop has now made 19 of his first 21 field-goal attempts, giving him a 90.5% success rate that's tied for fifth-best in the league among full-time kickers. He's made every field-goal attempt under 55 yards.
One of the biggest questions for the Ravens coming into the season was how they would fare with a rookie kicker replacing arguably the best to ever do it, Justin Tucker. Loop has not only handled the job but thrived.
The other question about Loop was whether the sixth-round pick out of sunny Arizona could handle the AFC North. At kickoff, there were 20 mph winds coming out of the northwest. By the time Loop hit that 44-yarder, the wind chill was below freezing.
It's one game, but Loop passed his test and feels good about what's to come as the Ravens still have four more AFC North games remaining against the rival Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals. Loop felt like his season started last Sunday.
"From the day I got here, it was all about, 'The first eight-nine weeks of the season, you'll be fine. The one we've got to prepare for is the back half of the season when you're playing in Cleveland, in Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh – those places where the weather is unpredictable and it's going to be windy and it's going to be cold,'" Loop said.
"We were working on hitting a ball that survives that weather in April and May when we first got here. Going out there and doing it, that was fun."
Loop said making all five of his kicks in blustery Cleveland didn't prove anything to him that he didn't already know. It just confirmed it. He had kicked in tough conditions in cold high school playoff games in Texas, as well as around the Big 12.
A couple weeks of windy practices in Owings Mills also helped build his confidence. One day last week, Loop and Ravens Senior Special Teams Coach Randy Brown went to battle against 25-30 mph winds.
"I frustrated him a little this week. We kicked a lot of balls into the wind, side winds," Brown said. "It was a lot of experimenting, a lot of frustration at times from him. But we had a good time with it and he learned a lot from it."
For as well as Loop kicked in Cleveland, he wanted more. After his 44-yarder, he locked eyes with Brown as he came off the field.
"I could tell he wanted to go back out there again," Brown said.
As the Ravens drove back down the field on their final offensive drive, Loop, long snapper Nick Moore, and punter Jordan Stout talked about how epic it would be to kick a game-winner into the "Dawg Pound."
Only problem was Mark Andrews' 35-yard fake "tush push" touchdown run on fourth-and-1 was even more iconic. But Loop was ready had he been called upon for a 52-yard attempt with the game on the line.
"I wanted the game-winner so bad. That would've been fun," Loop said.
"He's got plenty of game-winners ahead," Brown replied.
