The Arizona Cardinals are locking in one of their tight ends with a long-term contract extension. No, not Trey McBride. He already signed a four-year, $76 million deal back in 2025. This time, it's No. 2 tight end Elijah Higgins, who will sign a three-year, $26.8 million extension to remain with the Cardinals through the 2029 season, according to ESPN and NFL Media. The contract makes him the 20th-highest paid tight end in the league by average annual value.
Higgins has primarily been the No. 2 blocking tight end playing alongside the more receiving-oriented McBride through the first four seasons of his career. He's played between 26% and 42% of the team's offensive snaps in his four years, according to Pro-Football-Reference, and is at 41% so far this year. He has 82 catches for 798 yards and four touchdowns in his career to date, with 18 catches for 162 yards and one score so far in 2026. The deal would make Arizona the only team in the league with over $100 million in total contract value committed to their top two tight ends since 2025.
Higgins might be about to become more important to the offense, though, because the Cardinals' receiving corps has been decimated by injuries this season. Arizona traded away No. 2 wideout Marvin Harrison Jr. earlier this year, and has seen each of No. 1 Michael Wilson, No. 3 Kendrick Bourne and No. 4 Jalen Brooks go down with season-ending injuries in recent weeks.
The Cardinals are now left with the likes of Simi Fehoko, Reggie Virgil, Devin Duvernay and Harrison Wallace III at wide receiver for the rest of the season, unless they call someone up from the practice squad and/or make an addition in free agency. They are therefore likely to lean into even more multi-tight end sets, which means Higgins will play a larger role through the rest of the season.
Even before they lost the team's top four receiving options, the Cardinals were already extrenely reliant on their tight ends. Arizona has run the third-highest rate of 13 personnel this season at 26.5% of all offensive plays, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. They currently have the second-most targets to tight ends in the league (119) behind only Las Vegas and the fourth-highest success rate on passes to tight ends (61.3%) behind the Bills, Patriots, and Vikings, per Next Gen Stats.
Arizona has turned to rookie Carson Beck as its starting quarterback for the remainder of the year, with Jacoby Brissett having been benched and then traded, and Gardner Minshew having suffered his own season-ending injury last week. Higgins could emerge as one of Beck's more important targets alongside McBride while he plays out the stretch run of the season.
