The Denver Broncos are really swinging for the fences ahead of the November 10 NFL trade deadline, including going after arguably the NFL’s best tight end.
According to a report from ESPN’s Adam Schefter and Ian Rapoport on Saturday morning, the Broncos made a move to trade for Arizona Cardinals tight end and NFL All-Pro Trey McBride.
McBride wasn’t the only tight end the Broncos have tried to go after, either.
“The Denver Broncos have checked in around the league on tight ends, going so far as to ambitiously — and some would say outrageously — check on Arizona Cardinals star Trey McBride, who is from Fort Morgan, Colorado, and played at Colorado State,” Schefter and Rapoport wrote. “The Cardinals made it very clear they have zero intention of trading McBride, and Denver turned its attention elsewhere.”
The Broncos are 6-2 and play the Carolina Panthers on Sunday in Week 9.
Trey McBride: Game Changer on Terrible Team
McBride, 6-foot-4 and 246 pounds, finished 2nd in the NFL with 126 receptions, 1,239 receiving yards, and 11 touchdowns in 2025, earning NFL All-Pro honors while playing on 1 of the NFL’s worst teams.
He signed a 4-year, $76 million contract extension before the 2025 season, which could be a steal if he keeps producing those kinds of numbers.
“Unfortunately for McBride, he’s playing in the toughest division in football … perhaps ever,” CBS Sports NFL reporter Garrett Podell wrote in June. “The 2025 NFC West became the first division in league history with three 12-win teams — the Seattle Seahawks, Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers — while the Cardinals became the first team to finish nine games worse than every other team in their respective division. There’s not much hope of that hierarchy changing anytime soon unless Arizona stinks again in 2026 in order to land one of the top quarterback prospects in the 2027 NFL Draft.”
Broncos Don’t Have Answers at Tight End
Broncos tight end Evan Engram was terrible in 2025 after the Broncos signed him to a terrible 2-year, $23 million contract. He was never worse than when the Broncos needed him most. In 2 playoff games, he had 3 receptions for 26 yards and no touchdowns.
He hasn’t been much better in 2026, with 13 receptions for 136 yards and 1 touchdown through 8 games.
The Broncos tried to improve the position — kind of — in the 2026 NFL draft. They used 2 picks on tight ends but, for some reason, didn’t use anything above a 5th-round pick (No. 152 overall) on North Carolina State’s Justin Joly or a 7th-round pick (No. 256 overall) on Utah’s Dallen Bentley.
Of those 3 options at tight end, Joly seemed like he had the most upside, but the Broncos cut him before the regular season and he landed on the 53-man roster with the Miami Dolphins.
The Athletic’s Nick Baumgardner called Joly 1 of the “Biggest Sleepers” coming out of the NFL draft.
“Joly is a bit of a project — you might never get true first-down, run-blocking power out of him,” Baumgardner wrote. “But he’s a bit of a mutant athletically (6-3, 241), with great vertical speed and enough wiggle to separate at the top of routes. He could be a potential matchup problem in the NFL.”
Broncos Attempted ‘Outrageous’ Trade for $76 Million All-Pro: Report