Arizona Cardinals tight end Trey McBride is one of the rising stars at his position, as evidenced by being named to his first Pro Bowl in the 2024 NFL season. On Thursday, however, he rose to the very top of the tight end food chain, thanks to his team. The Cardinals rewarded their star tight end with a new contract extension that makes him the highest-paid tight end in the 106-year history of the National Football League.
According to the Cardinals, it is a four-year extension with $43 million in guaranteed money. The average annual salary of the deal is $19 million, which tops Travis Kelce’s $17.1 million for the most at the position. The overall value of McBride’s deal of $76 million also edges out George Kittle ($75 million) for the most in the history of the league.
McBride was entering the fourth and final season of his rookie deal, but this new extension takes precedence. He is now under contract with the Cardinals through the 2028 season.
Last season, the tight end had 111 receptions for 1,146 yards and two touchdowns, leading Arizona in both catches and yards. The 111 receptions were the fourth-most in the NFL and just one behind rookie Brock Bowers (112) for the most amongst tight ends. McBride and Bowers were also the only tight ends to rank among the top 12 NFL players in receiving yards, and no player at the position had more first-down catches than McBride’s 63.
Perhaps just as importantly, McBride garnered favors with Arizona’s quarterback, Kyler Murray, by being as sure-handed as any player in the league. McBride dropped just 2 percent of the 147 targets he received, which was the lowest drop percentage among the 15 players who were targeted at least 135 times.
“Maaaaan! So happy for my dawg, worth every penny! More work to be done but a great day,” he said.
McBride gained national prominence last season, but his true breakout year came the season prior, in 2023. That year, he amassed 81 catches for 825 yards and three touchdowns, after having 29 grabs for 265 yards and a score in his 2022 rookie year. McBride also ended a decades-long drought for Arizona in the 2023 season when he gained 131 yards in a Week 10 win over the Atlanta Falcons. That made him the first Cardinals tight end with a 100-yard game in 34 years, dating back to the 1989 season.
That was the longest such drought in NFL history and was so long ago that the Arizona Cardinals were known as the Phoenix Cardinals at the time, back in 1989. McBride would add another 100-yard game later in that season and then had three more triple-digit yardage games last year.
Though he has just three years under his belt, McBride is already moving up the Cardinals’ record books. His 221 career catches and 2,236 yards already rank second, all-time, among tight ends in Cardinals history, with both stats trailing Hall of Famer Jackie Smith. McBride’s number of catches is also the most in NFL history through a tight end’s first three seasons.
A second-round pick in 2022, McBride has far exceeded expectations, especially since he came from a Group of Five program at Colorado State. While he was the first tight end drafted in his class, 13 wide receivers were drafted ahead of him, including six in the first round. However, none of those 13 have made a Pro Bowl yet, unlike McBride.
With a foundational piece locked up for the next few years, the Cardinals are hoping that their team, as a whole, can ascend in a similar way that McBride has. Arizona made strides last season in going 8–9, which equals the total number of wins it had in the prior two seasons combined. But still, the team has the third-fewest wins (16) in the NFL since the start of the 2022 NFL season, trailing only the two teams that had the No. 1 overall picks in each of the past two NFL Drafts in the Carolina Panthers (14) and Chicago Bears (15).
With hopes of adding to its win count, Arizona has also gone outside of the facility in regard to new contracts recently. Early in free agency, the Cardinals signed pass rusher Josh Sweat to a four-year contract, after he spent his first seven seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles. Sweat made a Pro Bowl in 2021, won a Super Bowl with Philly last year, and has averaged 8.3 sacks over the past four years.
The Cardinals also brought back a familiar face in defensive lineman Calais Campbell. Like McBride, Campbell is also from Colorado and was also a second-round pick, with the latter being drafted back in 2008. Campbell, who leads all active NFL players with 242 starts, left Arizona after the 2016 season, played for four other teams, and is now back to where it all started.
Soon to be 39 years old, Campbell is the oldest defensive player in the NFL and will provide a veteran voice to the 25-year-old McBride and other young Cardinals.
