A breakout down the stretch run of last season turned Colston Loveland into a household name among NFL fans. The Chicago Bears’ tight end quickly earned the adoration of the fantasy football community and wound up a highly touted talent at the position during draft season, but through two weeks, his production isn’t in the same stratosphere as the hype. It’s early, of course, but people are beginning to worry.
Should fantasy managers be panicking about Colston Loveland and consider benching him before Week 3?
Should you panic bench Colston Loveland in Week 3?
A former national champion with the Michigan Wolverines, Loveland was a first-round pick in last year’s draft. He didn’t truly pop until the midseason mark, but a 118-yard, two-touchdown outing in Week 9 put him on the map. From that point on, he averaged 14.25 FPPG in PPR formats and with six games of double-digit points and three of 20+ points. In total, he finished the regular season with 713 yards and six touchdowns on 58 receptions, but it was an eight-catch, 137-yard showing in the Wild Card that really caused the hype to peak.
Headed into year two under Ben Johnson’s offense in Chicago, there was a ton of chatter suggesting that Loveland would be the team’s de-facto top option in the receiving game for Caleb Williams. The sky seemed to be the limit as the head coach spoke about his desire to break the NFL’s scoring record – Week 1’s 59-point effort made that seem like a possibility, but three points for the Bears in Week 2 brought that crashing back to reality. The most shocking part, perhaps, is that Loveland has produced only one catch for three yards across the first two games of the season. All together, he’s seen just five targets, too.
After blanking in the opener and scoring just 1.3 fantasy points to follow it up, Loveland hasn’t even been a start-worthy player yet. He’s definitely been in lineups after going in the early-to-mid rounds of drafts, though, so he’s surely caused some chagrin for fantasy managers who roster him. Now that we’re 1/9th of the way through the real NFL season and 1/7th of the way through the fantasy regular season, what’s the play with the tight end?
The frustration is real, especially given the preseason expectations for an offense that was supposed to be ascending in the second year with this core. To panic over two games would probably be an overreaction given the talent here, especially in the greater context of what these two weeks have been. In Week 1, neither Loveland or his other highly touted teammates Luther Burden or Rome Odunze put forth a truly strong effort in fantasy despite the Bears’ high score. The team tallied nearly 300 rushing yards and the highest scorer among those three pass-catchers was just 9.5 PPR points from Burden. In Week 2, the weather was quite bad in Chicago and the game saw just 15 combined points scored in a 9-3 final. It’s been ugly.
That’s also not getting into the fact that as things currently stand, journeyman Kalif Raymond leads the Bears with a 25.0% target share. Johnson loves himself a slot receiver, but this isn’t the type of talent who will continue to win out throughout the full season. Small sample sizes do weird things, but at some point, the pecking order should shift more towards the better talent on the field.
Now, is Week 3 the matchup in which Loveland’s fortunes may change? It’s best not to expect too much right now. Williams suffered a Grade 1 hamstring strain at the end of last week’s game and will likely miss this contest against the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football. Backup quarterback Tyson Bagent is also in concussion protocol, so there’s no guarantee he even takes the field, either. That could leave longtime veteran Case Keenum as the starter come Week 3 – a third-string signal-caller facing a tough defense is never a good sign for fantasy production.
Is it worth benching Loveland this week due to the quarterback question and the matchup? There’s a real argument to sit him rather than start him, one which is probably even more worth considering if you’re already in an 0-2 hole after a couple of bust weeks from the tight end. Just don’t panic and drop him, though – he’s the type of talent who should win out in this situation in the long term. Consider other options for now, but ideally, Loveland will do what he was drafted to do once his starting quarterback gets back on the field. The squeaky wheel gets the grease and this coach is too smart to let one of his top weapons get hung out to dry.
