Super Bowl Data Reveals Shocking Trend — Why Rookie TE Colston Loveland Could Be the Bears’ Secret Weapon in 2025

Super Bowl victories are fueled by the play of the winning team’s starting quarterback.

Or are they?

Dig the Big Game performances we’ve seen from the top tight ends in each Super Bowl over the last ten years:

Super Bowl LVIII (2024) – Kansas City Chiefs

Travis Kelce

• Targets: 10

• Receptions: 9

• Yards: 93

• Touchdowns: 0

Super Bowl LVII (2023) – Kansas City Chiefs

Travis Kelce

• Targets: 6

• Receptions: 6

• Yards: 81

• Touchdowns: 1

Super Bowl LVI (2022) – Los Angeles Rams

Kendall Blanton

• Targets: 5

• Receptions: 5

• Yards: 57

• Touchdowns: 0

Super Bowl LV (2021) – Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Rob Gronkowski

• Targets: 7

• Yards: 67

• Touchdowns: 2

Super Bowl LIV (2020) – Kansas City Chiefs

Travis Kelce

• Targets: 6

• Receptions: 6

• Yards: 43

• Touchdowns: 1

Super Bowl LIII (2019) – New England Patriots

Rob Gronkowski

• Targets: 7

• Receptions: 6

• Yards: 87

• Touchdowns: 0

Super Bowl LII (2018) – Philadelphia Eagles

Zach Ertz

• Targets: 7

• Receptions: 7

• Yards: 67

• Touchdowns: 1

Super Bowl LI (2017) – New England Patriots

Tight End: Martellus Bennett

• Targets: 6

• Receptions: 5

• Yards: 62

• Touchdowns: 0

Super Bowl 50 (2016) – Denver Broncos

Tight End: Owen Daniels

• Targets: 2

• Receptions: 1

• Yards: 18

• Touchdowns: 0

Super Bowl XLIX (2015) – New England Patriots

Rob Gronkowski

• Targets: 10

• Receptions: 6

• Yards: 68

• Touchdowns: 1

A quick look at the Bears On SI abacus tells us that the highest-performing starting Super Bowl tight ends since 2015 have combined for 643 yards, an average of 64.3 per game. If you take Owen Daniels’ 2016 stink bomb out of the equation, that average climbs to 69.4.

For context, last season, the average game-by-game yardage for all NFL WR1s was 70.6. So, in effect, a Super Bowl tight end is as crucial to championship success as a top-shelf wide receiver.

And this is why, to an extent, the 2025 Chicago Bears’ offensive fortunes might lie in the hands of a freakin’ rookie.

Love, Love, Love

“I think Colston Loveland is going to be huge for Caleb Williams. It can't be minimized how huge it is for [Williams] to have a playmaking tight end like Loveland out there. He’ll be a safety net for a quarterback who just loves to run around and make crap happen. Now instead of running around and making crap happen [himself], Williams can dump it to his huge tight end over the middle and let him make crap happen.

“He can be someone who’s a notch above, a player who people are going to be talking about late in the year.”

So said Pro Football Network’s Chief Content Officer and Loveland truther David Bearman, and it’s hard to argue, especially considering the above numerically-proven importance of the tight end position, circa 2025.

For further proof, look no further than the 2023 and 2024 regular seasons, when current Bears head coach and former Detroit offensive coordinator turned Lions’ TE1 Sam LaPorta into a straight-up weapon for a team that had a combined record of 27-7.

Dig Sam’s career regular season digits:

2023

• Targets: 120 (2nd on team)

• Receptions: 86 (2nd)

• Receiving Yards: 889 (2nd)

• Yards/Game: 52.3 (2nd)

• Touchdowns: 10 (2nd)

2024

• Targets: 83 (3rd on team)

• Receptions: 60 (3rd)

• Receiving Yards: 726 (3rd)

• Yards/Game: 45.4 (3rd)

• Touchdowns: 7 (2nd)

It’s worth noting that LaPorta missed one game in 2024, a season in which he saw 71 less snaps than in his 2023 rookie year. This, of course, means he’s been equally effective in his two NFL seasons.

In a nutshell, Johnson turned LaPorta into a key offensive cog for a team that posted the league’s second-best regular season record over that two-year stretch, just one game behind the dynastic Kansas City Chiefs.

So if Bearman is right, and if Johnson deploys Loveland in a manner similar to his use of LaPorta, the first-year man out of Michigan could be the 2025 Chicago Bears’ most impactful offensive player.