Cardinals star TE Trey McBride has arrived, and he's shaking up everything in his path

New York Times

7 days ago

GLENDALE, Ariz. — The Cardinals' $80 million tight end walks to the side of the stadium tunnel in beat-up, old flip flops, slides his back down against the concrete wall and plunks all 250 pounds of himself to the ground.
'Is it OK if we sit?'
It's both an unfussy posture and location for Trey McBride to talk about how much money he's just made, how his entire life and that of his family (including many siblings and pets) changed the moment he signed the four-year, $76 million extension with Arizona that solidifies McBride as a face of the franchise.
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That contract also places him atop the earnings at his position (just under tenured San Francisco tight end George Kittle), saying as loudly as McBride's 1,146-yard previous season that the 25-year-old is also one of the ascending young faces of the NFL.
Shortly after he signed the contract in April, McBride stood at the lectern in the Cardinals' stadium — cameras, lights, the whole thing. But on this late-July day he chooses to sit on concrete next to the tunnel, feeling its coolness against his back and its stability underneath him as he continues to process how everything he ever quietly dared to dream about has come true.
At times, McBride's raw emotion surges across his face and he swipes at his eyes with one tattooed finger, pausing now and again to collect himself but not because he's embarrassed. He worked harder than anyone could know to become this player. He doesn't care if a stranger sees how much that means to him.
'Just keep going,' McBride says he would have told the younger version of himself, knowing what he does now. 'Trust the process. That's really what I've done. I've just continued to take every single day (and) try to become the best version of myself and just know that my time is coming.
'You don't get a lot of opportunities in this league. When it does come, you've got to take it and run.'
McBride's arrival in Arizona as a second-round pick in 2022 wasn't glamorous at first. But his timing, plus his mastery of his position over the last three seasons could not have intersected more perfectly with that of Cardinals offensive coordinator Drew Petzing.
Petzing, 38, comes from Mike Shanahan/Gary Kubiak's offensive system (via Minnesota), then from Kevin Stefanski's version of that system (via Cleveland). Petzing and the Browns' offensive staff thought about different conflicts to create for defenses using do-it-all tight end Austin Hooper and what the future might be once then-rookie David Njoku emerged. Petzing often asked defensive players 'what kept them up at night' when playing against one or two tight ends who could block and catch the ball. Over time, some of those conversations found their way into Arizona's playbook once Petzing arrived in 2023.
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Then, the Cardinals were rebuilding. But McBride had found his momentum.
He spent the 2022 season mostly on the back side of plays, digging out blocks in support of lead tight end and veteran teammate Zach Ertz while quietly hungering for more. In 2022, Ertz caught 47 passes while McBride had just 29. In 2023, under new head coach Jonathan Gannon and his offensive coordinator, Petzing, that flipped.
Ertz went on injured reserve that November, and McBride became the lead target of the entire offense with 81 catches for 825 yards, 31 more catches than even the Cardinals' top receiver at that time, Marquise Brown. The team went 4-13 for a second consecutive season, but everything had changed for McBride. Ertz later signed with Washington, formalizing McBride's No. 1 spot not only in the tight ends room, but also in the offense.
'I wanted to be in that role,' McBride said. 'I wanted to be that featured player. I really took it in every day, trying to be the best player I could be and trying to grow.'
Petzing, who used two tight ends or 12 personnel at a 20 percent rate in 2023 (15th most in the NFL) and 13 personnel or three tight ends at a league-leading 11 percent rate (per TruMedia), hammered down harder on that identity with McBride at its center. The Cardinals increased their 12 personnel usage to nearly 30 percent in 2024 (10th), and again led the league with a 15.6 percent rate of 13 personnel. McBride, always the single tight end when in 11 personnel and always the leader in the heavier packages, accounted for 30 percent of all receptions by the Cardinals' offense in 2024 (111).
Arizona improved to 8-9. McBride was a Pro Bowler and also became the first tight end in NFL history with at least 221 catches in his first three seasons.
'When the ball is in the air, he's gonna catch it,' said tight end Elijah Higgins. 'I think that's the thing that's most special about Trey, is he just comes down with the rock. He just makes things happen, and that's what good football players do.'
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In McBride, Petzing has found a player through whom he can build literally any concept.
'He allows us to be whatever we want to be, whenever he's in the game,' said Petzing. 'Stretching the field? Great. He can do it. Match up one-on-one versus man (coverage)? He can win. Underneath a zone defense? Catch-and-runs? Feeling space? Making decisions? He's really talented.'
Single-high coverage? Look out for some version of 'Far Cross', which is McBride's favorite route in Petzing's playbook. He'll run a dozen or so yards upfield before breaking at a long angle toward the opposite sideline from where he started. McBride likes it because he wants to see if he can beat the safety with speed. He doesn't think most people believe he's as fast as he is.
'And (he) allows us to do all of that without tipping our hand or letting people know what we're trying to do,' Petzing said.
Petzing and the offense have a saying: 'Multiple for them, simple for us.' It means they want to build counters and complementary plays to an initial look, all out of the same look, so that a defense is indecisive about what it will do after that first play.
In doing this out of heavier personnel concepts like 12 and 13, they can make an already-physical gap scheme running game (featuring powerful running back James Conner) even more taxing to stop. Because Petzing has McBride and teammates Higgins and Tip Reiman, the Cardinals can stay in their heavier personnel whether the play is run or pass, leaving even more for the defense to guess.
As an every-down blocker and the lead receiver by volume, McBride has to know more about this offense than almost any other player on the team.
'Tight end in this offense … what we require them to understand mentally is not quite the quarterback, but it's probably the closest thing,' Petzing said. McBride has to understand as much about the intricacies of the blocking schemes and front structures as the starting offensive linemen (except from every alignment, not just one position). He has to know his releases, the coverage he'll see at the top of his routes and what that may present as pre-snap.
McBride's teammates along the offensive line say that trusting he'll know where to be in his blocks and also 'selling out' for as physical a collision as possible in turn allows them to commit further to their own blocking. If they know their help (McBride) will be in the correct place on their block, explained center Hjelte Froholdt, a lineman is able to get his full body and vision into it instead of also partially manning his peripheral.
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'He embraces the 'suck',' said Froholdt. '… That's something that we can respect.'
To get through all of this information and technical work, practice is all-important for McBride, who pushes so hard in that setting that he often has to swap out gloves in the middle of it because his first pair is soaked through with sweat to the point where they make the football wet, too. Tight ends coach Ben Steele calls him 'Wild Man'.
Practice is also a bit of a useful nightmare for Gannon and defensive coordinator Nick Rallis. Gannon's defense, which improved last season to 14th in DVOA from its bottom-of-the-league status in 2023, is in a way a reflection of Petzing's offense. Many plays, including shifts and rotating coverages and a variety of pressures, come out of indiscernible pre-snap looks. It is a perfect creative playground against which McBride can practice being anywhere, on any given play, and both sides are challenged in the process. Out of that spawns new ideas for all of the coaches.
And some well-meaning frustration. Like the offense, the defense has to install certain plays and get in functional reps.
' 'Nick, you better put two (defenders) on him or he's gonna wreck every practice,' ' recounted Gannon, grinning. ' 'I can't do that all the time.' 'Yeah, I know. Well, we're getting killed.' …
'Typically in the numbers game of defense versus offense, there (are) more tools to take away receivers than there are tight ends, truthfully. Now, there's ways you can do it but it's taking away from the structure, typically, of the defense.
'I'm glad we go against such a good player like that, because we're gonna see 'em in our division (and) scattered throughout the league.'
In Sunday's practice inside the stadium, McBride glided through red zone seven-on-sevens and collected quarterback Kyler Murray's first two passes, including one for a touchdown. He leaped to dunk through the goalposts, but pulled the ball at the last second and thudded it against the crossbar with one hand.
The force of McBride's arrival rattled the uprights, sending the orange flags at their tops fluttering.
(Illustration: Will Tullos / The Athletic; photo: Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)