Bears News: The Love of the Bear
Colston Loveland arrived in the NFL as a top-10 pick with a long learning curve ahead of him. Eight months later, he left his rookie season as the most talked-about tight end in dynasty fantasy football.
The Bears selected Loveland 10th overall in the 2025 NFL Draft out of Michigan, where he left after three seasons as one of the program’s top receiving threats. He was 21 years old when his first professional game kicked off in September. He will be 22 when his second one does.
The early returns were not encouraging. Through his first eight weeks, Loveland ranked among the worst-producing tight ends in the league. He had just 11 catches over that stretch, buried in a rotation that still included veteran Cole Kmet and a Bears receiving corps that featured DJ Moore, Rome Odunze, and Luther Burden III competing for targets alongside him.
Then Week 9 happened.
Against the Cincinnati Bengals, Loveland caught six passes for 118 yards and two touchdowns, including a 58-yard walk-off score with 17 seconds left. It was the game that flipped the script. From that point through the end of the regular season, only Trey McBride outscored him in total fantasy points at the tight end position. Loveland finished his debut campaign with 58 receptions for 713 yards and six touchdowns across 16 regular-season games, closing with back-to-back weeks of double-digit targets, 10 against San Francisco in Week 17 and 13 against Detroit in Week 18, totaling 23 targets across those two games alone.
The postseason cemented the conversation.
In the Wild Card win over the Green Bay Packers, Loveland was targeted 15 times and caught eight passes for 137 yards. It was one of the most dominant tight end playoff performances in recent memory and made him just the second player at the position in NFL history to record at least 10 targets and 130 receiving yards in a playoff game at age 22 or younger, joining Rob Gronkowski. A week later, in the Divisional Round against the Los Angeles Rams, Loveland was targeted 10 more times before exiting with a concussion in the fourth quarter. He finished with 56 yards. The Bears lost 20-17 in overtime. Across both playoff games, Loveland saw 25 targets, a postseason target share of nearly 30 percent.
The offseason only strengthened his case. DJ Moore was traded to the Buffalo Bills in March in exchange for a 2026 second-round pick, removing the one veteran presence in Chicago’s receiver room who consistently demanded targets ahead of Loveland. Without Moore, quarterback Caleb Williams figures to distribute the ball primarily among Loveland, Odunze, and Burden, a pass-heavy offense with a young, ascending quarterback and no defined WR1.
That backdrop is exactly what dynasty analysts are pointing to. Trey McBride and Brock Bowers each face less competition for targets, but neither plays alongside a quarterback carrying the long-term ceiling of Williams.
Loveland enters Year 2 healthy, proven, and well-positioned.
What Could Make it Better?
The 2026 NFL Draft is next week, and the Bears hold the 25th overall pick. They have seven total selections, including two in the second round (Nos. 57 and 60).
The most direct path to unlocking Loveland’s full potential runs through the offensive line. In 2025, Caleb Williams took 44 fewer sacks than in his rookie year after Chicago revamped the unit, and Loveland’s emergence in the second half of the season was no coincidence. A clean pocket allows Williams to work through progressions and find Loveland on intermediate and vertical routes. A collapsing one does not.
That protection is now in question. Left tackle Ozzy Trapilo, who stepped in as the starter down the stretch and through the Wild Card win over the Packers, ruptured his patellar tendon late in that game and is expected to miss most of the 2026 season. Head coach Ben Johnson has already publicly acknowledged the “uncertainty” at the position. The Bears re-signed Braxton Jones and added veteran Jedrick Wills on a one-year deal, but neither is a long-term answer.
Who I Like At 25:
- Kadyn Proctor, OT, Alabama — 6-foot-7, 352 pounds, bulldozing run blocker. Ryan Poles attended his pro day personally. Pass protection consistency is the concern, but the ceiling is high. Proctor has been all over the board in Mock Drafts. I have seen him as a top-10 and a late-round pick; either way, he would be a nice grab for the Bears.
- Caleb Lomu, OT, Utah — considered the cleaner prospect by several analysts, a natural fit at left tackle, and reportedly hosted for a top-30 visit.
- Blake Miller, OT, Clemson — projected in range by some mocks if the tackles go fast early.
In my opinion, the Bears are one elite left tackle away from giving Caleb Williams (and Colston Loveland) a true foundation to build on.