The Chicago Bears had other needs they could have addressed with the 10th overall pick in April's draft, so it was eye-opening when the took Michigan tight end Colston Loveland. Being the first draft pick of the Ben Johnson era in Chicago landed as meaningful, and fueled easy trade speculation around incumbent No.1 tight end Cole Kmet.
Loveland missed time during OTAs as he recovered from shoulder surgery, so it was easy to project a fairly slow start to his rookie season. But through two games, calling it a slow start for Loveland would be putting it lightly.
Loveland has played over half of the Bears offensive snaps in both games thus far, and 55 percent of the offensive snaps overall. The most concerning thing is his lack of involvement, with a total of two catches for 12 yards on three targets. Against the Detroit Lions in Week 2, he was targeted once and had zero catches.
Loveland is not the first rookie tight end to have a slow start to his debut season, but with what fellow first-round rookie tight end Tyler Warren is doing for the Indianapolis Colts, it has become easy to lament what Loveland isn't doing so far.
From a fantasy football perspective, with the idea he would be sharing tight end targets with Kmet and be in line for a larger role as the season progressed, Loveland made a lot of sense as a late-round draft target.
Fantasy analyst goes against the current grain on Colston Loveland
After Week 1, Loveland was the most dropped player in Yahoo! fantasy leagues. Now that the waiver claim process has cleared in a lot of leagues heading toward Week 3, the percentage of leagues he is rostered fell again this week (49 percent of Yahoo! leagues; 59.9 percent of ESPN leagues).
Everywhere you look, you'll see Loveland's name on lists of players fantasy managers can or should drop after his catch-less dud in Week 2. It's a well-founded idea, even though it's just two weeks into the season. Those who drafted Loveland surely took him as their second tight end, and there are better options available on the waiver wire in many leagues right now.
Earlier this week, Johnson pointed to the potential for changes to the skill position pecking order for the Bears based on what he saw on tape from the blowout loss to the Lions. Could that mean Loveland will see the field more?
Pro Football Focus fantasy analyst Nathan Jahnke was one of the optimists about Loveland heading into the season. So it's not shocking that he went against the current sentiment to name the Bears' rookie tight end a player to buy low on, looking to Week 3.
"Loveland has played only 55% of Chicago's offensive snaps compared to Cole Kmet‘s 90%. The two are typically on the field together in two-tight-end sets, but Kmet has led the way in 11 personnel. However, this is a situation where Loveland could earn more playing time as the season progresses. Because there is no tendency for one tight end to play on early downs and the other on late downs, it would be easy for Chicago to change the rotation."
"Kmet has only caught three passes for 60 yards so far this year, compared to Loveland's two receptions for 12 yards. Mark Andrews and Pat Freiermuth were two other tight ends who had smaller roles early in their rookie seasons and gained more playing time and production as their rookie seasons progressed."
"Loveland is someone who is being dropped in some leagues and should be relatively easy to trade for. He is someone I’d be happy to stash on my bench for the first half of the season to see if his role and target total increase."
Johnson's intention of getting the tight ends more involved against Detroit did not happen, with two of Kmet's three catches coming when the game was decided. There's nowhere to go but up in that regard moving forward.
Fantasy managers who want to believe Loveland will become an asset this year have something that could land in their corner. If the Bears' season goes all the way awry, Kmet could be traded. That would leave the rookie as the team's clear-cut No. 1 tight end, and likely put him in the low-end TE1 conversation for fantasy.
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Loveland's fantasy value could not be any lower than it is right now. Buying low on him (or adding him, in leagues where he's available) is totally dependent on a manager's situation, including league size, number of bench spots, etc., but the move to stash him could bear fruit as Johnson and the Bears' coaching staff sort things out after an 0-2 start.