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Dynasty Prospect Scouting Report: Trey McBride

Trey McBride, TE, Colorado State

Height: 6'3.6"
Weight: 246
Age: 22.4

Combine Results:

40-yard dash: 4.56 seconds*
Broad jump: 117 inches (64th percentile)
Vertical jump: 33 inches (50th)

*McBride waited until his Pro Day to run the 40. Add the historical 0.05-second “penalty,” and he still delivered an 89th-percentile result for the position.

College Career:

Before we get to the college portion, let’s start with Dane Brugler’s write-up on McBride’s high-school career from his excellent draft guide for The Athletic:

"He was a three-sport standout at Fort Morgan High and set the school records for points in basketball and home runs and RBIs in baseball. On the football field, McBride was a four-year letterman and played on both sides of the ball, lining up at nine positions over his career. He earned First Team All-State and team MVP honors as a junior and senior, despite missing part of his final season with a collarbone injury. McBride finished his prep career with 89 catches for 1,737 yards and 23 touchdowns, adding 361 rushing yards and three touchdowns. On defense, he totaled 310 tackles, 14.0 sacks, and seven interceptions and also had six blocked punts on special teams."

Wow.

Despite all that, McBride hit the college scene as just a 3-star recruit, choosing the home-state Rams over offers from Cal, Colorado, Kansas State, Northern Colorado, Wyoming and Navy.

As a true freshman, McBride saw minimal action in a pass offense dominated by now-Dolphins WR Preston Williams, with future Vikings WR Olabisi Johnson as the #2.

With those 2 gone the following season, McBride settled in as the #3 pass-catcher, behind WRs Warren Jackson (77 receptions) and Dante Wright (57). His 4 TD catches tied for 2nd on the team and accounted for 19% of the team total.

McBride’s role more than doubled his junior season. That’s tough to tell in a COVID-shortened campaign that found Colorado State playing just 4 games, but McBride claimed 29% target share, produced 41.4% of the receiving yardage and snared all of the team’s TD catches.

The TDs dried up in his final year, in an offense that totaled just 15 of them over 12 contests. The target share climbed again, though – to 34% – as McBride accounted for 38% of CSU’s receptions and 37.1% of the receiving yards.

He became the school’s 1st ever unanimous All-America selection and won the John Mackey Award as the nation’s top TE.

Film Review:

Games watched: Vanderbilt 2021, Utah State 2021, San Jose State 2021, South Dakota State 2021, 2019 highlights

Let’s get the blocking stuff out of the way before we move on to the eye candy.

McBride can do it. He’s willing and experienced. He clearly needs to add strength, which is pretty much always going to be the case for a college player turning pro. And he has room for improvement.

McBride tied for 25th last season in Pro Football Focus run-blocking grade among 113 TE prospects in this draft class; 46th among 392 FBS TEs overall. He checked in 8th in pass-blocking grade.

That seems like a level that shouldn’t dramatically alter his rookie-year playing time in either direction. And that’s what he looked like in the games I watched. He’s not blowing people up as a blocker, but he’s also not getting blown up.

Now let’s get to why McBride’s NFL team will want him on the field. He’s a terrific receiver.

Let’s start with a ho-hum ball thrown behind him that McBride deftly adjusts to grab and smoothly take into the end zone.

While we’re on the topic of smoothness, I rewatched the clip of this screen play at least 5 times and still don’t get just how he transitioned so quickly from catch to run.

Even just the 4-game sample I got showed Colorado State lining McBride up in various spots and manufacturing touches for him.

It also showed a player who doesn’t always need both hands available.

McBride can work all levels and brings confident hands. High ball? No problem.

That 2nd one didn’t count because he couldn’t get a foot down, but you can still see the hands at work.

Low ball? He’ll get it.

And if you want to line your TE up wide and throw him a contested downfield pass, well, McBride can win that as well.

The highlight package linked above – from his sophomore campaign – also shows off some of McBride’s run-after-catch ability.

Fantasy Outlook:

How much is there to dislike about McBride as a prospect?

The biggest knock on him seems to be that he needs to develop as a blocker. OK.

You might also read that he doesn’t quite sport top-end speed. Sure. You won’t mistake him for Noah Fant. But McBride strikes me as the type of player I want to bet on.

Go back to him proving himself as a stellar all-around athlete in high school. Then came the 2nd-year breakthrough and market share dominance. And the athletic testing suggests there’s plenty of speed. McBride ranks 3rd in speed score in his TE class, and 11th among 61 TE prospects from the past 4 classes.

Lance Zierlein comps him to Austin Hooper, but McBride is significantly faster. PlayerProfiler finds generates a “best comparison” of Heath Miller, who matched McBride’s top-shelf dominator rating but also falls well short of McBride’s tested speed.

The NFL career arc of either of those players would be a career success for McBride. And I believe he carries fantasy upside beyond their production.

The biggest issue might be his size. McBride can likely add weight, but he arrives with just 26th-percentile height and 20th-percentile weight for the position. That factor is far from a killer, though. Since 2000, we've seen 34 player seasons of 160+ PPR points from TEs standing 6'4 or shorter and 250 pounds or less. (That's a total that will usually land you in the top 12.)

I'll start to worry if McBride's size pushes him into Day 3 of the NFL Draft.

Matt Schauf, Editor

Matt has earned two Fantasy Pros accuracy awards for IDP rankings and won thousands of dollars as a player across best ball, dynasty, and high-stakes fantasy formats. He has been creating fantasy football content for more than 20 years, with work featured by Sporting News, Rotoworld, Athlon, Sirius XM, and others. He's been with Draft Sharks since 2011.