Trey McBride didn’t dance around the question. If he had to pick the NFC West team he likes least, the Cardinals tight end went straight to Seattle.
On the Bussin With The Boys podcast this week, McBride made it clear the Seahawks sit at the top of his list - while still giving them plenty of respect.
"It's actually - to be honest I think it's Seattle," McBride said on the Bussin With The Boys podcast this week.
"That's a tough place to play. Their defense is a bunch of sh-- talkers.
They have a really good team, too. I feel like every time we go to Seattle, it's such a hostile environment.
Lumen Field's such a cool place to play and they've gotten the best of us the last couple of times so it'd be nice to be on the winning side for sure."
Arizona’s frustration with Seattle is backed up by the results. The Cardinals have lost eight straight to the Seahawks over the last four seasons, and six of those games were decided by 10 points or more. They haven’t beaten Seattle in that span.
That’s part of the broader reality for the Cardinals in the NFC West. Arizona hasn’t won the division since 2015, and recent years have mostly been spent chasing the 49ers, Seahawks and Rams while finishing fourth in three of the last four seasons.
The Seahawks won’t be far away on the schedule, either. Arizona is set to face Seattle in Weeks 2 and 9 of the 2026 season.
New Cardinals head coach Mike LaFleur, meanwhile, isn’t sounding rattled by the division landscape. When asked whether being in the NFC West is daunting, he answered simply: "Nope," LaFleur said when asked if it was daunting being in the NFC West.
"Because it's not what we're concerned about right now. The season's too long.
That stuff just flat-out doesn't matter, like if we're not just focused on us right now - and even when it gets in the season, like the best teams, they're worried about themselves. I want them concerned about themselves," LaFleur said.
LaFleur knows the neighborhood well. He spent recent years with the Rams under Sean McVay and also has seasons of experience with the 49ers and Kyle Shanahan.
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Arizonas work centered on the line and the backfield, where the team added help in the form of Isaac Seumalo, Elijah Wilkinson and draft pick Chase Bisontis, while also bringing in Tyler Allgeier and Jeremiyah Love. The pieces are in place to support a cleaner, more functional offense, but the real question is whether all of those changes finally translate into something the Cardinals have lacked too often - a unit that can keep games from slipping away before they start. [Read more 🡒]
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Bisontis comes into camp with the kind of draft capital that usually signals a long-term answer, even if the job is not handed over on day one. Adams, meanwhile, is giving the Cardinals a legitimate reason to let the battle play out, and that should make this one of the more closely followed camp duels on the roster as Arizona figures out how quickly it wants to turn the spot over. [Read more 🡒]
Cardinals Rookie Jeremiyah Love Faces Immediate Pressure In Year One
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For Arizona, that makes Love one of the more interesting names to watch in the coming months. He knows the workload conversation is real for any young back, yet he also believes the offense has enough pieces to keep things from falling on one players shoulders. How the Cardinals manage that balance will say plenty about how quickly they want to lean on their rookie. [Read more 🡒]