Unless you were paying attention to snap counts, nobody saw Trey McBride jumping into the role that he did in week six of last season. McBride's snap count started to increase a little bit each and every week, and then in week six, he had his first tight end one performance of the season. Then, Zach Ertz went down in week seven, and Trey McBride took off. From week six through the end of the season, Trey McBride was third in targets, second in receptions, and third in receiving yards among all tight ends down the stretch. He truly was a tight end one. He didn't score nearly as much as we would like, but the volume was plenty.
Outside of Marquise Brown, who had 101 targets and was second on the team behind Trey McBride and missed three games last season, no other player got more than 62 targets. It truly was the volume show for Trey McBride, but it is probably fair to ask if he's going to see all of that volume again in 2024. Now, Marquise Brown is gone and his 101 targets are vacated. Marvin Harrison Jr. is going to see all of those targets plus more. The Arizona Cardinals also added Zay Jones to go on the other outside spot, and then they'll have Michael Wilson, who showed glimpses of some breakout potential last season.
So, will Trey McBride get all the targets that he got last year? I'm not so sure about that. I still think that he's going to be fantasy viable, and I still think that he is going to be a top-six tight end. Kyler Murray obviously developed a great rapport with him last season, and that should carry over this year considering Murray is going to have to develop that same rapport with Marvin Harrison and with Zay Jones. But he's not going to get all that volume, and if he's going to lose some volume, he's going to have to score some touchdowns.
So, even though from a fantasy perspective he was the tight end three from week six on last season, probably this year we're looking at more like a tight end five with a little bit of a drop to low tight end one status each week when he doesn't score a touchdown.
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