Why Ben Johnson’s Plans For Colston Loveland Are More Ambitious Than Ever
Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson won’t be going into 2026 with the same offense he exited last season with. For one, two of his projected starting offensive linemen are gone. Left tackle Ozzy Trapilo tore his patellar tendon in the playoffs, and center Drew Dalman retired. The Bears were also forced to trade wide receiver D.J. Moore. People are left wondering how the offense will look after these changes. Rome Odunze dealt with a foot injury last season. Luther Burden still has some growing to do. The offense has to go through somebody. It isn’t difficult to find the answer. That will be Colston Loveland.
This isn’t just an assumption, mind you. Sports Mockery insider Jeff Hughes revealed on his podcast that Johnson’s infatuation with the tight end has grown significantly over the past few months. The Bears head coach thought he knew what he was getting when the team drafted the tight end out of Michigan 10th overall. It didn’t take long for Loveland to exceed those expectations, both with his talent and his work ethic. Johnson is fully prepared to mold the offensive attack around him.
Johnson saw what everybody else did with Colston Loveland.
Towards the end of the 2025 season, he was pretty much unstoppable. He had 94 yards and a touchdown against San Francisco, then 91 yards and a touchdown in the regular season finale against Detroit. Then, in his playoff debut, he torched the Green Bay Packers for 137 yards. Teams had no answer for him. The only reason the Los Angeles Rams were able to slow him down was by giving him a concussion. Doing all of that as a rookie must have had people terrified of what he could become with more experience and a better understanding of the offense.
No doubt Johnson is thinking the same thing. Few offenses in the NFL are friendlier to tight ends than his. Handing him a weapon like Loveland felt like bad news for the league even at the time. Now there are no further doubts. Johnson knows what he can do and will build the offense around that. Defenses will inevitably try to counter, which will open up countless opportunities for others to make plays. It is essentially the same situation as Travis Kelce in Kansas City and George Kittle in San Francisco.
This is everything the Bears hoped for.
Today’s NFL is driven by great tight ends. It isn’t a coincidence that contending teams often have great ones involved in the offense. Kelce, Kittle, Rob Gronkowski, Zach Ertz, Mark Andrews, and Sam LaPorta all prove as much. The Bears have had a player of this stature probably since Mike Ditka, though Greg Olsen could’ve been that. Regardless, Colston Loveland has all the makings of a star. Nobody should begrudge Coach Johnson for wanting to feature him like one. Smart teams do that.
The only question is how much. Johnson tends to prefer spreading targets around. However, Loveland was getting 10+ looks every game down the stretch. If the Bears keep it around that range and the tight end stays healthy, we might be looking at the first 1,000-yard tight end the franchise has produced in over 60 years. In a league driven by star power, this team may finally have one.