McBride's 2025 campaign was about as dominant as a tight end season gets. He finished as the overall TE1 for the second consecutive year at 15.2 points per game—up from 11.9 per game in 2024—with 126 receptions, 1,239 yards, and 11 touchdowns on 163 targets. The underlying metrics back up every bit of it. McBride ranked in the 93rd percentile in PFF pass route grade and 88th in yards per route run (1.78 YPRR) among tight ends with meaningful playing time. He ran 62.8 percent of his routes from the slot—95th percentile—which explains the volume; he's a mismatch nightmare in the middle of the field. His ESPN OVERALL score (86th percentile) confirms the production, even if his OPEN score (45th percentile) suggests he's not consistently beating coverage so much as leveraging his positioning and Jacoby Brissett's trust to generate catches. He also did damage with the ball in his hands, avoiding tackles at an 88th percentile rate. The one area that doesn't pop is YAC per reception (50th percentile), but with 126 catches, he doesn't need to be a run-after-catch threat to dominate fantasy. He's going as a top-two tight end and has every metric to justify being the consensus TE1.