If I had to choose a TE who has the best shot at becoming the overall fantasy TE1 in 2024, but has never finished as the fantasy TE1 before, I’m going with Trey McBride.
There were 6 tight ends who had 100 targets last year, and only one of them who ran a route on less than 65% of his team’s passing plays, and that was Trey McBride. The good news is that from Weeks 10 on last year, that number jumped up to 86%, and his target share went all the way up to a whopping 28%, which was higher than any other TE during that span… AND he was the TE2 in fantasy points/game as well.
Now that he’s the clear TE1 on that team, it’s pretty much a lock that he’s the #2 target for Kyler Murray at the very least now that they added Marvin Harrison Jr. I’m expecting the target distribution to be extremely top heavy between these two guys, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they each demanded above 25%.
Why? Because among qualifying TEs, no one was targeted at a higher rate per route than Trey McBride last season. No one besides George Kittle had more yards per route run than McBride. No one, including George Kittle and Sam LaPorta, had more 1st downs/route run than McBride. McBride is also the only TE who had zero drops last season. You can’t say that about any of the top TEs last year.
I don’t think any of the other receivers on this team will challenge these two, and I think Kyler Murray - with a normal off-season not having to recover from the ACL injury this summer - will be a much better QB this year. So with a better version of Kyler, a full-time role combined with the efficiency he showed last year, a new WR to take away opposing defense’s attention, the same OC he had last year - I think McBride is going to contend for that overall TE1 spot this year.