The Fantasy Football Implications of Colston Loveland to the Bears
With the 10th overall selection of the 2025 NFL Draft, the Chicago Bears stayed put and grabbed tight end Colston Loveland. Despite rampant whispers that the team may move up and select running back Ashton Jeanty, they decided to give Caleb Williams (and head coach Ben Johnson) another piece to the passing game puzzle. Can the young Michigan prospect give Johnson his new Sam LaPorta, or will the new addition get lost in the shuffle of what is, on paper, a compelling pass-catching group?
Click here for more 2025 Player Profiles!
Colston Loveland’s Prospect Profile
Coming out of high school from the southern Idaho area, Colston Loveland was a four-star recruit, thanks to a prolific stint as a two-way player, and —stop me if you’ve heard this before— an impressive basketball profile before focusing on a potential career as a tight end. Wading through extensive offers across the college football landscape, he decided to join Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan program. It didn’t take him long to become an integral part of the offense, catching 16 passes for 235 yards as a freshman before popping with a more-than-solid 45-649-4 stat line in UM’s National Championship-winning 2023 team as a sophomore.
As a 19-year-old (!!), the tight end would end up ranking second in both receiving yards and touchdowns (behind Roman Wilson) on that Championship squad, finishing fifth in the entire FBS in tight end receiving yards, behind notable NFL players Ben Sinnott, Ja’Tavion Sanders, and Brock Bowers. Despite (easily) leading the team in targets (82), receptions (56), receiving yards (582), and touchdowns (five) during the 2024 campaign, the numbers don’t look quite as prolific due to a massive decrease in pass rate and quarterback talent. Regardless, Loveland had a nearly unfathomable 26.5% target rate and accounted for 34.7% of the team’s receiving yards during his junior —and final— collegiate season.
| Year | Targets | Receptions | Yards | Touchdowns | TPRR | YPRR | aDOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 16 | 16 | 235 | 2 | 0.090 | 1.38 | 10.3 |
| 2023 | 45 | 45 | 649 | 4 | 0.164 | 2.38 | 9.6 |
| 2024 | 56 | 56 | 582 | 5 | 0.256 | 2.67 | 7.1 |
Outside of what would amount to a terrible passing offense, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention Loveland’s shoulder issue, which also had a bearing on his 2024 counting stats. The tight end missed three full games due to a right shoulder injury, which would eventually lead to an AC joint surgery in January of this year. This missed playing time goes a long way toward explaining why he failed to reach the same receiving yardage mark in the previous year, but when he was on the field, he was still producing as one of the best prospect tight ends we’ve seen in recent history.
Loveland was more than just a seam-stretching tight end, operating in all areas of the field, including near the line of scrimmage as a block-and-release option who consistently peeled off YAC gains that aren’t very common for a 6’5”, 248-pound pass-catcher.
Colston Loveland #GoBlue #NFLDraft
- Astute tracking over his head.
- Stiff arm + high knees/feet without unnecessarily going airborne.
- Contact balance. pic.twitter.com/TU7gDGXNMM— Matt Waldman (@MattWaldman) February 21, 2025
This YAC ability was a little harder to pick out on ‘24 film, but once again, the quarterback room wasn’t doing him many favors, and he did actually end up with an identical 5.2 year-over-year YAC/reception despite earning far fewer long-gainers.
Colston Loveland YAC pic.twitter.com/LnxrURVDkv
— Nate Tice (@Nate_Tice) April 3, 2025
Loveland has plenty of promising aspects to his game, and seems more than deserving of his high Draft capital, but how exactly does this line up with what Chicago wants to do?
How Colston Loveland Fits With the Bears, Fantasy Projections
According to HC Ben Johnson, during a post-Draft press conference, “I do see a lot of comparisons to (Sam) LaPorta.” That’s all we need to say here, right?
It would, of course, be easy (and quite fun) to project Loveland for a Sam LaPorta-like rookie season in 2025, but the odds would be working against him. To begin with, these aren’t exactly 1v1 situations. LaPorta came out of the gates hot, accruing an 86-889-10 stat line in his first year en route to a TE1 season in 2023. A dream output in a dream scenario. But even if we were to carbon copy that offensive scheme over to the 2025 Bears, the circumstances are nowhere near the same.
An incredible rushing attack behind what was arguably the best offensive line in the 2023 season created an extremely soft middle of the field that both LaPorta and Amon-Ra St. Brown were allowed to roam free. Pairing that with pass-catching depth that included Josh Reynolds, Kalif Raymond, and a still-growing Jameson Williams allowed Ben Johnson’s last TE weapon to accrue eight games with at least seven targets. Each of those requirements is flipped on its head for Loveland in Chicago, at least in Year 1.
The Bears’ offensive line is growing and should be closer to the middle-of-the-pack in 2025, but no one is confusing D’Andre Swift and Roschon Johnson with Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery running behind the league’s best front-five. In addition, that ‘23 Lions team didn’t bolster a receiving core of DJ Moore, Rome Odunze, Luther Burden, and the incumbent, Cole Kmet.
Loveland has the talent to eventually reach the heights that LaPorta found during his time with Johnson as his OC —and certainly has enough juice to eradicate Kmet as a fantasy option— but the odds that the rookie should even be considered as a top-7 option at the position out of the gate are exceedingly low. If anything, his addition bolsters only one bottom line: quarterback Caleb Williams. Though Moore and Odunze can remain respective WR2 and WR3s, you have to love this pick as both a Bears fan and a Williams fantasy manager.
After the smoke settles on the 2025 NFL Draft, TE and QB are now firmly in their respective fantasy streaming streets, and it’s not out of the question that the sophomore signal-caller finds his way to his first back-end QB1 finish of his young career.
Bottom Line
- Colston Loveland was drafted 10th overall by the Chicago Bears, eradicating any fantasy value for veteran Cole Kmet.
- Loveland was an incredibly efficient aspect of the Michigan Wolverines’ passing attack, even after a sharp decline in quarterback play.
- The pairing with head coach Ben Johnson is fantastic, but target share in an ascending offense could be hard to come by, leaving a Sam LaPorta-like rookie season at the low end of probabilities.
- Loveland’s current Underdog ADP has him floating around the TE12 range, but this is likely a little too pricey considering the further addition of WR Luther Burden in the second round, and the possibility that Kmet still plays a bit of a pass-catching role in 2025. As a TE2 option, or a stack completion with Caleb Williams, he makes a fantastic later-round selection. He will operate as more of a streaming option in typical redraft leagues.
