Vikings need win in Windy City to stop all this hot air

In the overstimulated minds of national media members and paranoid local fans, Kirk Cousins spent Saturday browsing studio apartments in New York City, Justin Jefferson placed a down payment on a beach house to be closer to work and the Vikings' brain trust began collating mock drafts to see how many dozens of players they'll need to trade to acquire the rights to USC quarterback Caleb Williams.

Media reports, rumors and outright disinformation all move at the speed of light, so the Vikings' 1-4 record, combined with their unwillingness or inability to sign their two most important players to contract extensions, led to a Black Friday At The Department Store frenzy of random possibilities and journalistic vandalism.

This would be a good time to call a timeout — if Kevin O'Connell hasn't used his season allotment already.

The 2023 Vikings are indeed on the brink of disaster as they prepare to face the Bears at Soldier Field. They are indeed in need of a victory to claim they remain in contention. But before we hire Leonardo DiCaprio to play the lead in the movie, let's see whether the ship actually hits the iceberg.

The NFL is a strange place. Every week, great teams lose and bad teams win. There is a greater than 1% chance that as of Sunday night, the Vikings will have defeated the Bears, the Lions will have lost to a surprisingly competent Tampa Bay team in Florida, and the Vikings will be two games out of the division lead with 11 games remaining, including two against Detroit.

While the Vikings have not proved that they are a good team, they have yet to prove that they are a hopeless team. They have lost four games by one score or less. Two of the losses came to the teams that played in the Super Bowl last year.

Maybe this team will be ready to give up on the season come Monday, but let's wait until Monday to find out.

Could the Vikings trade Cousins to the New York Jets? It's theoretically possible.

Here are the reasons it's not as much of a certainty as ESPN would like you to believe:

* Cousins has a no-trade clause. He would have to want to be traded mid-season from a team in which he is heavily invested, and a place where he owns a home and raises his kids, to take on the pressure of taking a struggling team not only to the playoffs but on a playoff run, and likely without that team making a future commitment to him.

* The team trading for Cousins would have to believe that he would immediately elevate them into contention for a championship, despite his lack of experience in their system and with their coaches, and despite his history. Cousins is 35. He has been a starter for nine seasons. His postseason record is 1-4. He has never played in a conference championship game.

* The team most often connected with Cousins via media speculation, the Jets, already traded massive assets to acquire Aaron Rodgers, and is hoping Rodgers could return either later this season or certainly next year. The Jets won seven games last year. They are 2-3 this year. Are they better positioned to make a playoff run in the talented AFC East, which features the Bills and Dolphins, than the Vikings, who appear to be playing in a bad division with an unproven first-place team?

* What happens to the Vikings' business model and negotiations with Jefferson if they stop trying to compete this season, start Sean Mannion at quarterback, and embarrass themselves while finishing 1-16?