The One Cardinals Player Who Can Wreck Packers on Sunday

“He’s one of the best tight ends in the league right now.”

That’s what Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur had to say about Arizona Cardinals tight end Trey McBride. With the Packers set to visit the Cardinals on Sunday, McBride is second at his position in receptions (37) and receiving yards (347) and leads the team in both categories.

“They’re going to try to get him the ball as much as possible, and they do a great job of doing it in different ways,” LaFleur went on to say. “They use him as a vertical threat, they can get it to him underneath. I just think he’s a great competitor and a really good player. He’s well-rounded.”

The Packers have given up 59.6 yards per game to tight ends this season, the eighth-most in the NFL. McBride puts up a similar 57.8 yards per game, making it likely he will continue his production against the Packers.

Opposing tight ends have led their team in receiving yards in three out of five games against the Packers. McBride has only led the Cardinals in receiving yards in one game this season, in Week 2 against the Panthers. That was one of his best games of the season, bringing in six of seven targets for a season-high 78 receiving yards with a season-high 13.0 yards per catch.

McBride caught eight passes for 72 yards and one touchdown last week against the Colts and might have won the game had he not been held on a fourth-down incompletion from the 9 with 58 seconds remaining.

At Lambeau Field last year, he caught all eight targets for 96 yards.

“He’s a great player. I think he’s one of the best tight ends in the league,” Packers defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley said. “I remember coming off the field last year really being impressed with him. He’s a lot faster than you think and he looks faster on the field than he does on tape, and he’s strong and he’s explosive and he’s got good hands and he played with the right mentality and mindset.”

The big question mark for McBride and the Cardinals this week is who will be throwing him the ball.

Kyler Murray missed last week’s game against the Colts with a foot injury, putting his status in doubt for Sunday. He has been limited in practice all week, throwing to the reserve receivers on Thursday while veteran Jacoby Brissett worked with the first-team offense. Murray did the same thing in practice last week before being inactive on Sunday.

It may not matter to McBride who is throwing him the ball.

While Murray was his quarterback for all 17 games last season, when McBride had 111 catches for 1,146 yards and two touchdowns, he had an excellent game with Brissett. He caught a season-high eight passes, just missed his season high with 72 yards and scored his second touchdown of the season.

While backup quarterbacks sometimes rely on their tight ends and running backs to be their security blankets due to their short distance from the line of scrimmage creating easier completions, McBride debunked that theory last week with Brissett. His average depth of target was a season-long 9.3 yards.

That’s because McBride is a big-time weapon and Brissett has plenty of experience. This is his 10th NFL season, including four as a starter.

Other injuries may have an impact on McBride’s production, as well. Their No. 1 receiver is Marvin Harrison Jr., the fourth pick of the 2024 draft. He suffered a concussion last week and has been limited in practice. Veteran receiver Zay Jones (knee) has not practiced.

Harrison is second to McBride in receptions (22) and receiving yards (338) and also has two touchdowns. Jones is the Cardinals’ third-leading receiver with 116 yards. The Cardinals do not have another pass catcher with more than 100 yards.

With the Cardinals’ top two running backs, Pro Bowler James Conner and Trey Benson, on injured reserve and Emari Demercado, who started the season as the third-down back, missing the first two days of practice with an ankle injury, they could lean on the passing game more often than not. If Harrison and Jones are unable to play, McBride could be seeing an even larger target share than usual, no matter who is throwing the ball.

“I love the way he plays football,” Hafley said. “They do a lot of things; it’s not just in the dropback game, it’s in the play-action game. They run a lot of deep crossers with him, they run a lot of intermediate routes with him, they run screens to him, they run RPOs to him, so they use him like a wide receiver and not just like a tight end, and they try to feed him the ball as much as they can.”

If the Packers can put together a full game on defense, it might not matter what McBride does. They held the Bengals scoreless with only 33 passing yards at halftime. However, with McBride’s talents and the Packers’ struggles against tight ends, McBride could be in for another good game, even with the Cardinals’ uncertainty at quarterback.

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