Colston Loveland arrived in Chicago as a first-round pick and finished his rookie season as the TE15 in points per game. That number sits well below where the fantasy community is now drafting him. His price has climbed to the 4/5 turn this summer. Should fantasy managers pay up for Loveland in 2026?
Should I Draft Colston Loveland in Fantasy Football?
The surface stats do not tell the full story here, and the gap between the two is enormous.
Loveland spent the first half of his rookie season inexplicably trapped behind Cole Kmet. It was not until Week 16 that he consistently played more than 80% of the snaps. Unsurprisingly, that is right around when he started to break out.
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His final line reads as unremarkable. Loveland finished as the TE15 in fantasy points per game at 10.3, which is your quintessential replacement-level tight end. That is the number people will see when they look him up.
Except that is not remotely how it played out week to week. Loveland was not quietly producing 10 points every Sunday. He had no fantasy value whatsoever from Weeks 1 through 8. Then he exploded for 29.8 fantasy points against the Bengals in Week 9, a game Kmet happened to miss.
That performance turned out to be a glimpse rather than a launching point. Loveland added 14.9 fantasy points in Week 12 and then went quiet again. The actual breakout did not arrive until Week 17.
What happened from that point forward is what we are paying for this season. Loveland posted 21.4 points in Week 17, followed by 25.1 in Week 18, and then 23.7 in the first round of the NFL playoffs. Three consecutive weeks of elite WR1 production from a tight end, including a playoff game against a real defense with the season on the line.
The through line is simple. Every time Chicago actually put Loveland on the field as a full-time player, he produced at a level almost nobody at the position reaches. The rookie stat line reflects a usage problem, not a talent problem, and that usage problem no longer exists.
Now for the price. Loveland typically comes off the board around the 4/5 turn, which is early for a tight end by my standards. I much prefer to wait at this position, because the opportunity cost of passing on a wide receiver in that range is real.
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Loveland is the rare case where I am willing to bend. I genuinely believe he could rival Trey McBride this season and possibly be 85% of Brock Bowers. Getting that kind of production without paying a second or third-round price is exactly the sort of edge that wins leagues.
Loveland is my TE3 and the TE3 by ADP, so the market and I are aligned on where he belongs. If the wide receivers I want are already gone when my pick arrives at that turn, I am perfectly fine pushing the button on him.
Katz’s TE Fantasy Rankings 2026
- Brock Bowers | LV
- Trey McBride | ARI
- Colston Loveland | CHI
- Tyler Warren | IND
- Tucker Kraft | GB
- Sam LaPorta | DET
- George Kittle | SF
- Harold Fannin Jr. | CLE
- Kyle Pitts Sr. | ATL
- Isaiah Likely | NYG
- Travis Kelce | KC
- Dallas Goedert | PHI
- Jake Ferguson | DAL
- Mark Andrews | BAL
- Juwan Johnson | NO
- Dalton Kincaid | BUF
- Chig Okonkwo | WAS
- Brenton Strange | JAX
- Hunter Henry | NE
- Kenyon Sadiq | NYJ
- Dalton Schultz | HOU
- Greg Dulcich | MIA
- AJ Barner | SEA
- T.J. Hockenson | MIN
- Oronde Gadsden II | LAC
- Terrance Ferguson | LAR
- Gunnar Helm | TEN
- Evan Engram | DEN
- Cade Otton | TB
- Colby Parkinson | LAR
