Nothing about Loveland's spot in Chicago is theoretical anymore. Ben Johnson has said flatly that he's expanded Loveland's route tree beyond what he ran as a rookie and plans to keep building on it through camp, and the receiver room around him got simpler to read when DJ Moore left for Buffalo. Cole Kmet is still on the roster and still logging real snaps in Chicago's multi-tight end sets, and rookie Sam Roush gives Johnson another body to rotate in, but the first read at the position belongs to Loveland now. That's a coach naming an expanded job, not a hunch about one.
What makes the expansion believable is what camp has already shown. Loveland is built more like a big wing than a traditional tight end, long enough to shield a corner from the ball and fast enough that safeties can't just bracket him and call it solved. The Sun-Times reported watching Jaylon Johnson, Chicago's own top corner, throw his hands up with nothing to say after Loveland walked into the back corner of the end zone against him and Jon Rhattigan in team drills. That's the equation Johnson is betting his offense on: put a matchup problem that size in the route tree Loveland is now allowed to run, and the answer isn't a coverage call, it's a shrug.
The honest hole in the case is that all of this is still preseason evidence. Loveland's rookie surge came in a four-game stretch down the stretch, not across a full season, and it ended with a concussion in the divisional-round loss to the Rams that knocked him out of his final game. He's never had to sustain the route-tree workload Johnson is now promising against defenses that have a full season of tape on him, and he still splits snaps in Chicago's tight-end-heavy personnel groupings rather than living on the field alone. Un-guardable in a padless camp period and un-guardable against a disciplined zone shell in November aren't automatically the same thing.
The player worth measuring him against is McBride, who has already done the thing Loveland is only being promised. McBride led all tight ends in target share and first-read looks in Arizona last year and remains the clear focal point of that passing game even with more mouths to feed in the backfield. Loveland's ceiling might be higher if the route tree really does open up the way Johnson is describing, but McBride is the proven target hog and Loveland is still the bet on the promise. If you need the floor, McBride's the safer football player. If you're chasing the version of Loveland that Chicago's own coaching staff keeps describing out loud, he's the one with more room left to grow into.
