Tucker's time: Raiders speedster needs a big preseason to capitalize on bigger opportunities

COSTA MESA, Calif. — At the end of Raiders’ minicamp this spring in Henderson, veteran receiver Jakobi Meyers joked he was ready for the team to get away for training camp so he could “beat up on Tre Tucker a little bit.”

Meyers ended up passing on the opportunity to playfully bully his younger, smaller fellow receiver, however, as the Raiders wrapped up three weeks spent in Southern California today. Tucker was too laser-focused — and too muscular.

“He’s strong as hell now,” Meyers observed.

Tucker, the 5-foot-9, 185-pound third-round pick out of the University of Cincinnati last year, worked harder than anyone on the team in the offseason, according to Meyers.

In many ways, it’s showed.

Tucker’s physique is more chiseled now as he dedicated himself to bulking up to both better embrace the physicality of the NFL and persevere through a long season. He somehow appears to have done it without losing a split-second of speed.

The 23-year-old was already arguably the fastest player on the team last year, and if anything, seems to have widened the gap this season. He’s consistently getting separation from defensive backs on his routes.

And yet, Tucker hasn’t capitalized on the strength and space in training camp as much as he should because he’s carrying one fatal flaw — his hands.

Tucker has probably dropped more passes than the rest of the receiving corps combined. It’s an issue he must clean up during the Raiders’ three-game preseason schedule, starting at the Minnesota Vikings on Saturday, to fully claim the No. 3 receiver role that he’s penciled in to hold.

“I kind of know what I’m doing, what they expect from me,” Tucker said. “I know what I have to fix from last year and obviously it’s just a continuing process. I have to go through this whole camp and continue it into the season.”

In a break from modern NFL norms and especially the Raiders’ organization the last five years, now permanent coach Antonio Pierce says everyone on the roster will play in the preseason.

But top receiver Davante Adams and Meyers, the clear No. 2, are as proven as any duo in the league, so it seems highly unlikely they will play and risk injury beyond a series or two in each game.

That leaves Tucker shaping up as the featured receiver for the exhibition slate, where the Raiders will try to determine their starting quarterback out of second-year incumbent Aidan O’Connell and free-agent signing Gardner Minshew.

“One of my mentors, coaches always told me, ‘It doesn’t matter who’s throwing the ball, it’s our job to catch it to get their name in the paper,’ so I don’t really notice who’s throwing the ball,” Tucker said. “I just kind of go in the huddle and whatever play is called try to execute it and, at the end of the day, come down with the football.”

Coming down with the football is not a new trouble spot for Tucker. He was similarly turning heads last training camp with his speed and playmaking ability but couldn’t always haul in the targets thrown his way.

He had a big drop along the sideline in a preseason game against the Cowboys, and the lack of sure hands seemed to reduce his role as a rookie. He made some big plays—including a pair of long touchdown catches in a historic 63-21 rout of the Chargers—but never logged more than 50% of the offensive snaps until the final two games of the season.

The Raiders are hoping he proves worthy of more work this year.

“He changed his body,” Pierce said of Tucker. “He was here the entire offseason and got bigger, stronger and faster.”

The competition for playing time has also cratered. Once looking like a potentially deep receiving corps, the Raiders now sit relatively thin at the position.

Veteran free-agent acquisition Michael Gallup shocked many in the organization, including Tucker, by retiring before the start of training camp. Fellow newcomer Jalen Guyton hasn’t practiced due to an undisclosed injury.

Behind Tucker, the Raiders’ receiver depth chart now mostly consists of undrafted free agents and a couple players who have bounced between the end of the active roster and practice squad the last couple years — Kristian Wilkerson and DJ Turner.

Wilkerson’s skillset might be more limited as he’s more of a possession guy, but he’s been the second most prolific receiver of training camp behind Meyers as the Raiders limit the superstar Adams’ workload.

“Knowing this is the NFL, no matter what, who’s here, they’re going to bring in someone so it’s going to be a competition,” Tucker said. “It’s my job to lose. I’m going to take that approach and whoever we bring in, whoever we get, just put my head down and keep working.”

If the Raiders don’t feel fully comfortable with three receivers by the start of the regular season, they could run even more two tight-end sets. Splitting out Brock Bowers, the tight end whom they selected in the first round of this year’s draft, as more of a receiver is another option and something they’ve done throughout training camp.

It may not ultimately come to that. Tucker hasn’t put together the smoothest start, but the Raiders have shown no signs of losing faith in him.

And with the added emphasis they’re putting on the preseason, he should have a lot of chances still coming to succeed.

This story originally appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.