Pro Football Rumors
2024 marked a year for improvements in Arizona. In the second year of the Jonathan Gannon–Monti Ossenfort regime, the head coach and general manager duo took a team that had finished last in the NFC West for two straight years and had given up the second-most points and most rushing yards on defense in 2023 and improved in every one of those facets. Seeing that the new leadership was having a positive effect and knowing that quarterback Kyler Murray is now well over two years removed from his late-2022 ACL injury, the Cardinals came into this offseason with a new plan.
With a 2024 salary cap carryover of $11.38MM and another cap increase by the league, Arizona entered the offseason with $71.33MM in cap space — good for the fourth-highest amount in the NFL — and a plan to utilize it. With the small caveat of having to shoulder Murray’s $43.33MM-cap hit — good for the fifth-highest such figure in the NFL — the Cardinals came out of 2024 looking to improve the roster with tons of new contracts for players both foreign (to the team) and domestic.
Early this offseason, the Cardinals expressed hope to sign their star tight end to an extension as soon as he became eligible. They got it done just two months after that report, making McBride the highest-paid tight end in NFL history (for a little less than four weeks, until George Kittle moved the market just past him).
McBride, 25, has proven to be more than worth the $19MM-per-year price tag after finishing just one catch (111) and 48 yards (1,146) short of matching the totals of the league’s leading tight end in both stats. The TE market remains south of the $20MM-per-year place, even as WR salaries are now past $40MM AAV, but McBride set the table for such a breakthrough after his strong third season.
Although frustrating fantasy GMs by catching only two touchdown passes last season, McBride has established himself as the most prolific receiving tight end in the Cardinals’ Arizona-years history. McBride’s past two seasons rank first and second for Cards TEs in single-season yardage since the team relocated to the desert in 1988. This contract ensures the Colorado State product will team with Marvin Harrison Jr. as the Cardinals’ top pass-catching weapons for the foreseeable future.
Part of McBride’s full guarantee comes via a $16.5MM signing bonus. The former second-round pick secured a fully guaranteed 2026 base salary, and the Cardinals used $7.5MM in option bonuses — in lieu of void years — to help keep his cap hits low. McBride will not be tied to a cap number higher than $9MM until 2027. McBride’s $1.88MM 2026 option bonus is guaranteed, while $3MM of his 2027 base salary locks in on Day 5 of the 2026 league year. Per Spotrac, the other $7.53MM of McBride’s 2027 base salary shifts from an injury guarantee...
