Trey McBride 2026 Season Preview — out-caught every receiver but one | Muffed

A tight end caught one hundred twenty-six passes last season — more than every wide receiver in football except one. He finished as the number one fantasy tight end by almost four points a game. And he's being drafted behind another tight end. Trey McBride is the value of the position, and this is part two of the trade. The Muffed 2026 preview.

The season was historic volume. A hundred sixty-nine targets into a hundred twenty-six catches — second-most of any pass-catcher in football, receiver or tight end — for twelve hundred thirty-nine yards and eleven touchdowns, at a seventy-five percent catch rate. Eighteen-six a game, TE1 by a comfortable margin, all seventeen games played. And he did it catching passes mostly from Jacoby Brissett, as the unquestioned number one option on the roster. The identity isn't one play; it's the eleven touchdowns on a team that scored just forty-one offensive touchdowns all year, and the five hundred eighty-three yards he piled up after the catch. Volume and the skill to turn it into yards.

The arc: McBride has grown into the most heavily-targeted tight end in football, and last year the touchdowns finally matched the volume — a complete season at the position's most valuable usage tier.

What repeats, and it's the whole case: tight-end targets per game are the stickiest stat at the position, repeating around point eight, and McBride's nine-point-nine led all tight ends. That's not a number that evaporates — it's the most durable signal we track, and he owns the most of it. The touchdown share is clean, the catch rate and after-catch production are skills, not luck. There is nothing in the pattern library arguing against him and a great deal arguing for him.

[[SITUATION]]

The situation is mostly upside, per the reports: Arizona brought in a new head coach, Mike LaFleur, with a new coordinator, and the passing attack is reportedly designed to keep McBride at a hundred-plus targets — a premier target in the scheme. The one genuine variable is quarterback: Kyler Murray's status is uncertain after an injury-marred season, with Brissett having finished the year and a veteran addition possible. The honest read: McBride's volume survived a backup quarterback last year and still led the position — the target floor is about as quarterback-proof as it gets at tight end.

The price: pick twenty-one, TE2 — behind Bowers, the player he outscored by four points a game. Verdict: CALL underpriced. The stickiest signal at the position, the most volume at the position, priced second at the position. The counter, fairly: tight-end scoring compresses in twelve-team leagues, so the absolute edge over the field is smaller than the rank gap suggests, and the Arizona quarterback picture is a real if minor cloud. But getting the TE1-by-four-points a round after the TE going first is the cleanest positional value on the board. Draft him there and smile.

September watch: the target share under the new staff — if it holds near ten a game, he's TE1 again; and the quarterback situation, the only thing that could dent a bulletproof volume profile. That closes the top twenty. Your whole roster, every week — that's Muffed. The countdown continues down the board.