Kirk Cousins has played with some of the fastest receivers in the league over the course of his NFL career.

He still finds himself surprised at times by the speed of Las Vegas Raiders teammate Tre Tucker.

“I’ve played with DeSean Jackson and Aldrick Robinson,” Cousins said after Sunday’s 33-30 shootout loss to the Buffalo Bills at Allegiant Stadium. “I’ve played with 4.2 (40-yard dash) guys. (Tucker) can roll.

“I came off the field and said, ‘I think he’s faster than I realize he is.’ There are times I just need to launch and he’ll go get it. He showed me that again today.”

That’s exactly what he did in the final minutes of the game, lofting a ball to the back of the end zone that Tucker tracked down and made a sliding catch on for a 44-yard touchdown with 1:39 remaining

“Big time the way he finished it to go for it and to hold on,” Cousins said. “It starts to build trust and respect when a guy goes and makes a catch like that.”

It wasn’t the only one Tucker made as part of a 313-yard day for Cousins.

Tucker finished with five catches for 97 yards and two touchdowns, by far the best day for a Raiders wide receiver this season.

“It’s just the other 10 people out there doing their job and me finding a way to do my 1/11th,” Tucker said. “Whatever they call upon me to do, just execute that play with the 10 other guys on the field.”

Tucker’s job is often to stretch the field vertically or thin out the defense horizontally by employing his most valuable trait.

That’s how he got behind the defense on the Raiders’ final score, which gave them a chance at an onside kick that they ultimately were unable to recover.

“I’m not 6-foot-4,” Tucker said. “My asset, my God-given talent, is speed. So I have to be able to do those types of things. Obviously, Kirk trusts me. So when the ball is in the air, it’s mine or nobody’s. That’s my mentality. He put one up right there and the line did their job and I was able to make a play.”

Unfortunately for the Raiders, the rest of the wide receiver group combined for just one catch for 9 yards on six targets in the game.

It continued a troubling trend for the team. While Tucker had 19 catches in the first five games of the year, the rest of the wide receivers had combined to catch just 22 passes.

They barely added to that total on Sunday.

“There’s guys that are making plays right now that we are getting the ball to,” Kubiak said.

Cousins said everyone bears responsibility for increasing production

“I think just it’s about taking advantage of the opportunities you do have,” he said. “So, for example, I felt like on a hitch to Tre in the red zone today, just left it a little outside and ended up being incomplete. And that’s one where you want to put it right on him and make it easy for him. At times it’s just that you’re going where your reads are taking you, and if that’s the back, if that’s the tight end, so be it. But we definitely want to find explosives in the pass game, and if we’re finding those, I don’t get too caught up in who it’s going to because you never know on the next play where it might go.”

Tucker said the sole focus of the group is on finding ways to help the team win, not the numbers in the box score for each position group.

“Everybody has a job to do,” he said of the outside noise about the lack of numbers for the receivers. “That’s what they think and they have a job to do and you guys have a job to do. We have to do our job and if that involves having good production, that’s great. But I think at the end of the day, honestly, when you really look at it the only thing that matters is if you win the game or not. It’s a stats league, and everybody gets caught up in that, but the best thing at the end of the year is holding up a trophy. So each week it’s did you win or lose and the rest doesn’t really matter.”

On Sunday, the Raiders lost despite plenty of production from Tucker.

While he’s encouraged by the progress the team is making as compared to years’ past, he’s ready to help take the next step.

“I’ve been a part of some games where we weren’t very competitive and it just felt like you were out there participating,” he said. “(Now we are) competing and that’s what the NFL is about. A lot of games are one-score games. We’re very fortunate to be a part of them because that means we’re competitive…we have to figure out a way to close these games. We’re in all of them, but great teams close.

“That’s what we have to get figured out.”

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.