The bye has, as fate would have it, fallen on a holiday weekend for Trey McBride.

OK, maybe it's not perfect timing. Alas, for National Tight Ends Day (weekend?), McBride would probably want to be out there showing off why he's one of the – if not the – best tight ends in the NFL.

Add to that the rebirth McBride has brought to the Cardinals around the position and he has already secured his place in franchise lore.

This is what we do around the holidays. We reflect.

Jackie Smith was a Hall of Fame tight end for the Cardinals in their St. Louis days, putting up crazy numbers in his time. When McBride snaps a franchise tight end record, it has almost always been Smith's before.

But when you look at the position since the team moved to Arizona, which is approaching 40 seasons sooner rather than later, what was always stunning was that there were few realistic candidates to champion between Smith and McBride.

There have been moments. Right before McBride, Zach Ertz showed up in a trade and needed only 11 games to tie Smith's tight end reception record for the team, which did show Ertz still could be impactful at that point but also how low the bar was at the position.

Stephen Spach once made a huge 23-yard catch on third-and-16 to seal the 2008 playoff win over the Falcons. (Only to tear his ACL the next week in Carolina, costing him a chance to play in the Super Bowl. But Ben Patrick had his career highlight in the Super Bowl, making a TD grab.)

Tywann Mitchell made a late TD catch for a lead against the Giants in 2001, leading TV reporter Lesley Visser to yell at me, "Who was that?" because, well, not many knew Mitchell. (The Cardinals couldn't hold the lead over the final couple minutes though, so Mitchell's play disappeared into the ether.)

More tight end moments? Steve Bush catching a key late TD to set up the possibility of McCown-to-Poole in 2003. Jermaine Gresham's big back-of-the-end-zone TD in the Stanton Shuffle win in Seattle in 2015. Leonard Pope nearly "tackling" Larry Fitzgerald just short of the goal line in the 2008 NFC Championship. (Spoiler alert: Fitz was credited with the TD, and the Cardinals won.)

But until McBride there have been few that resonated long term. Ertz battled injuries. I remember guys like Rob Awalt, Wendell Gaines, Johnny McWilliams, Freddie Jones, Anthony Becht, Rob Housler, Darren Fells, Ricky Seals-Jones and Maxx Williams. It's cool if you don't.

McBride isn't even the only Cardinals tight end named McBride. Oscar McBride teamed with Gaines in the mid-1990s.

Bruce Arians, coaching in an era when Rob Gronkowski was awesome and Dallas Clark filled the stat sheet, once said he thought Steelers tight end Heath Miller was the best at his position in the game. Catches were nice. Blocking was also nice.

Trey McBride blocks. Know that.

"If he's just a receiving tight end, those are the guys that go to the Pro Bowls and I get that, but we have to take you out on first down and it's not a secret if we are running or passing," tight ends coach Ben Steele said "There is a lot of game planning involved in that that we don't want to tip our hand.

"The biggest part of blocking is the want-to, and Trey doesn't want to come out of the game. Ever."

The Cardinals get things for McBride they have rarely – dare I say never – seen against their tight ends. Steele said the Colts used a defensive end to chip McBride as he went out on his routes. McBride has noted a couple of times how much more difficult he has found dealing with defenses now, and Steele said when he showed up two years ago he warned McBride teams will have a plan against him.

"They try to take me away," McBride said. "Makes it a little more fun and more rewarding when they try to take you away."

Now, McBride is a touchdown maker, his four scoring grabs this season are already more than any of his first three seasons. Yes, his 47 catches are ahead of his pace from last season but his 421 yards is a little behind, and that has been frustrating. But McBride knows he is also coming off his best two games of the season.

And that is a good way to celebrate the holiday.