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Bears Rookie TE Colston Loveland Makes History in Epic Comeback vs. Packers

Colston Loveland just had the NFL playoff debut you dream about.

Tyler Lauletta

Colston Loveland made the most of his NFL postseason debut.
Colston Loveland made the most of his NFL postseason debut. / David Banks-Imagn Images
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The Bears pulled off an astounding comeback win over the Packers on Saturday night to cap off the first day of the NFL postseason.

Despite trailing 21–3 at halftime and 27–16 with less than five minutes to play, the Bears simply found a way, with quarterback Caleb Williams playing hero for the franchise that selected him as the first pick in the NFL draft just two years ago.

Williams was amazing, orchestrating his team’s comeback with a cool demeanor despite the tense moments, and pulled off the biggest throw of his NFL career thus far to convert on a must-have fourth-and-8 that looked dead in the water.

But in addition to Williams, the Bears offense saw another hero emerge on Saturday night in rookie tight end Colston Loveland. As Chicago mounted its comeback, Williams leaned hard on Loveland to get their drives moving, and Loveland came up huge, finishing the night with eight receptions for 137 yards.

In doing so, Loveland became just the second rookie tight end since the NFL merger to put up 100 yards in a playoff game, and jumped all the way to second on the Bears’ all-time single-game postseason receiving ranks, sitting behind only Allen Robinson.

He was all over the place all night.

While Williams has had moments with a few different favorite receivers so far in his young career, it looks like his match with Loveland could be a connection we are talking about a whole lot over the next few years.

Loveland will have another chance to show off his stuff next week when the Bears host another playoff game with a trip to the NFC championship on the line.

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Tyler Lauletta
TYLER LAULETTA

Tyler Lauletta is a staff writer for the Breaking and Trending News Team/team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI, he covered sports for nearly a decade at Business Insider, and helped design and launch the OffBall newsletter. He is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia, and remains an Eagles and Phillies sicko. When not watching or blogging about sports, Tyler can be found scratching his dog behind the ears.

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