Trey McBride

More episodes

• Camp · Aug 23, 2026Aug 23, 2026

  Trey McBride Camp Update — August 23: The Target Ledger Took the Week Off

  McBride played with the starters against Dallas in a half wrecked by penalties, and no charting this window measured his targets in practice or the game. The volume case that defines him goes into the preseason finale intact and untested.

• Camp · Aug 16, 2026Aug 17, 2026

  Trey McBride Camp Update — August 16: Seven of Eight Says the Volume Survived the Rebuild

  Trey McBride caught seven of eight targets with a touchdown in the Cardinals' August ninth practice. The June bet was that his league-leading target load would survive the new staff, and camp keeps saying yes.

• 2026 PreviewJun 13, 2026

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

  McBride finished as the TE1 in 2025, averaging 14.9 half-PPR points across all 17 games. That production was built on volume and role — the kind of inputs that carry between seasons — rather than touchdown variance or efficiency spikes that tend to evaporate. He has also been available 91.2 percent of the time since 2021, meaning the workload had a durable base to land on.

  ▾

  0:003:37

  1x

  1515

  Your episode · 3:37

  Show notes & transcript

  A tight end caught 126 passes last season — more than every wide receiver in football except one. He finished as the number one fantasy tight end by almost three 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 69 targets into a hundred 26 catches — second-most of any pass-catcher in football, receiver or tight end — for 1239 yards and 11 touchdowns, at a 75 percent catch rate. 14-nine a game, TE1 by a comfortable margin, all 17 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 11 touchdowns on a team that scored just 41 offensive touchdowns all year, and the 583 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 9.9 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.

  The situation, per the reports: Arizona rebuilt the offense around a new head coach, Mike LaFleur, with Nathaniel Hackett as coordinator and LaFleur calling the plays — and LaFleur spent June telling reporters the "sky is the limit" for McBride in the new scheme, floating more three-tight-end packages and more quick game. The quarterback picture is the caveat, and it's gotten specific: Jacoby Brissett has been named the starter, but he's in a contract standoff — he reported to June minicamp only to avoid fines, and the two sides are described as significantly far apart — with Gardner Minshew behind him. The honest read hasn't changed: McBride's volume survived backup quarterback play a year ago and still led the position — the target floor is about as quarterback-proof as it gets at tight end.

  The price: pick 18 — and, new this snapshot, TE1, ahead of Bowers for the first time. Verdict: CALL — underpriced, and it holds. The market finally moved him ahead of Bowers, but his own price barely moved, and the case was never about the order: he led the position in targets by roughly 50, and he out-scored the tight end going right behind him by almost three points a game. The stickiest signal at the position, the most volume at the position, at a price that still pays for a tight end, not for the TE1 overall. The counter, fairly: tight-end scoring compresses in 12-team leagues, so the absolute edge is smaller than the rank gap suggests, and an unsettled quarterback contract is a real if minor cloud. But top-of-position production at a round-two-adjacent price is still the cleanest positional value on the board.

  September watch: the target share under the new staff — if it holds near 10 a game, he's TE1 again; and the Brissett situation, the only thing that could dent a bulletproof volume profile. If he's one of your guys, this show exists for your whole roster — every player, every week, all season.

• 2025 ReviewMay 11, 2026

  Trey McBride 2025 Season in Review

  ▾

  0:002:55

  1x

  1515

  Your episode · 2:55

  Show notes & transcript

  Trey McBride finished 2025 as the number 1 tight end in total PPR scoring AND the number 1 tight end in PPR per game among qualifiers. Let that land. On a 3-and-14 Cardinals team that finished 23rd in offensive expected points added, McBride was the centerpiece of the entire passing operation. He played all 17 games, he was the verified number one receiver on the roster, and Jacoby Brissett threw at him like the offense had one reliable answer and was determined to find it on every script. This wasn't a touchdown fluke or a couple of spike weeks carrying a thin profile. This was a true workhorse year at a position that almost never produces one.

  Now let's dig into the numbers, because the volume is what separates McBride from the rest of the tight end room. He caught 126 balls on 169 targets for 1,239 yards and 11 touchdowns — a 75 percent catch rate on a target diet most number one wide receivers would envy. His total receiving expected points added came in at plus 72.7, so he wasn't just compiling — he was generating real value per play. The tracking backs it up: 3.06 yards of average separation, 4.72 yards after the catch per reception, and a yards-after-catch-above-expectation of plus 0.72, meaning he beat the model after the ball arrived. 583 of his 1,239 yards came after the catch — nearly half his production was creation, not running into open grass. And the weekly profile? Steady-floor, the kind teams dream about. Brissett's completion percentage over expected of plus 3.4 meant accurate, catchable targets all year, and McBride was the focal point on a pass-heavy team that dropped back 748 times, the eighth-most-sacked group in football. When the script went bad — and it did, often, with seven losses by 18 or more — his role only grew.

  The identity of the year sits in the touchdown column: 11 receiving scores from a tight end on a team that scored just 41 offensive touchdowns total. McBride was the red-zone solution, the third-down solution, the move-the-chains solution on a roster starved for any of them. On a team that lost 14 games and finished 31st in yards per carry, he was the offense's only consistent answer. That's how a tight end smashes his way to the top of the position.