Colston Loveland spent his summer doing normal Chicago things. He worked a shift at The Wieners Circle, the famously foul-mouthed hot dog stand every Bears fan has a story about. He also landed a part in a Hallmark Channel movie, 'Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Love Story,' set to premiere October 17. That is not a normal summer for a 21-year-old tight end heading into year two, but Loveland has never really done normal since he got to Chicago.
The football version of the story is why any of the off-field stuff gets attention in the first place. Drafted 10th overall in 2025 to be Ben Johnson's version of Sam LaPorta, Loveland led the Bears in receiving as a rookie with 58 catches, 713 yards and six touchdowns. He posted a receiving EPA of plus-44.6, the best mark by a rookie tight end since 2016, and ranked second among all tight ends in receiving yards from Week 9 on. The tape backs up the numbers: 137 yards and a clutch 2-point conversion in the playoff win over Green Bay, then six catches for 118 yards and two touchdowns against Cincinnati, capped by a 58-yard walk-off score.
What makes it more than a hot streak is how Loveland got there. He reportedly shows up to special teams meetings he is not even part of, just to soak up information. He is known to catch roughly 100 passes a day in camp. His stated reasoning is simple: 'I don't want anyone to have an edge on me.' Ben Johnson has openly compared him to LaPorta, the tight end Johnson helped turn into a top-five fantasy option in Detroit before this. That is the blueprint, and Loveland is already ahead of schedule on it.
Now get to the fantasy football part, because this is where it actually matters for your team. Loveland is currently going off the board around pick 41 in early 2026 redraft ADP, squarely in the fourth-round conversation and priced as a locked-in TE3 behind Trey McBride and Brock Bowers. Some rankings even have him climbing past that, with NFL.com slotting him second among tight ends entering the season. That is a real jump from a rookie who was a Day 2-ish name on 2025 boards, and it is the kind of price that reflects buy-in, not speculation.
The bigger factor nobody is pricing in enough: DJ Moore is gone from Chicago's receiver room heading into 2026, which opens a real target vacuum in Johnson's offense. Somebody has to eat those looks, and a 21-year-old who already proved he can operate as a primary read rather than a checkdown is the obvious candidate. If Loveland pushes into true weekly target-hog territory, the tier-2 tight ends fighting Tyler Warren and Harold Fannin Jr. for scraps look worse by comparison, and Loveland starts crowding the McBride-Bowers conversation instead of trailing it.
For managers building rosters right now, the play is simple: don't wait on him thinking a round-4 tight end is replaceable value. Tight end depth collapses fast after the top three or four names, and Loveland has the pedigree, the scheme fit and the target opportunity to be the rare TE who does not force you into a bye-week scramble. In dynasty leagues the price is even friendlier relative to the ceiling, given his age curve lines up with Caleb Williams and Luther Burden for what should be a multi-year runway together.
There is a betting-market wrinkle here too. As Loveland's name recognition grows off the field, expect his props and season-long touchdown markets to tighten before Week 1, especially if Chicago's offense keeps trending toward more designed looks for him in the red zone. Books tend to lag on ascending tight ends until the touchdown totals pile up, which means there is a small window right now where his numbers may still be soft relative to what he is actually about to do.
The Hallmark cameo and the hot dog shift are fun color, and they will get clipped and shared plenty between now and October 17. But the actual headline for fantasy rosters is that Chicago handed its passing offense to a tight end who already proved he can carry it, and the market has not fully caught up yet. Draft him like you believe that, because the Bears clearly do.