A win over the Chicago Bears on Monday night would be a breakthrough for Kirk Cousins. Everyone knows the numbers: He’s 0-9 in Monday Night Football and 0-3 against Chicago as a member of the Minnesota Vikings.
Sure, he beat the New Orleans Saints in the playoffs last year. Yeah, that win over the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday Night Football last season seemed like a big deal at the time. And he’s taken care of the ball while letting Dalvin Cook drive the offense coming out of the bye week.
But everyone knows that the Bears will limit Cook and force Cousins to beat them. They know about the Soldier Field curse. They know about the Vikings struggles against Chicago on Monday Night Football, specifically.
The win over the Green Bay Packers breathed life into the Vikings season, and it’s a good sign that they avoided a trap game against the Detroit Lions last week.
But this one is big.
If they advance to 4-5 in a game where Cousins takes charge against a defense that dragged the Mitch Trubisky/Nick Foles Bears to a 5-1 record before their recent three-game collapse, they have a clear path to 7-5 with the Dallas Cowboys, Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars up next. 9-7 and a playoff berth becomes a reality. 10-6 isn’t out of the question.
But everyone already knows that.
If this was just about Cousins, we could chalk it up to it’s just one game. They can still win 10 games this year even if they lose this one. The second Chicago game is in U.S. Bank Stadium. They get the Lions again. The Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers are more vulnerable than they looked at the beginning of the year.
If Cousins can get the ball to his playmakers — Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen — against this defense, it’s a good look for the organization.
In some ways, the Vikings front office got a pass when they first acquired Cousins. Teddy Bridgewater suffered a severe non-contact injury in practice. Sam Bradford had suffered too many injuries throughout his career to be relied upon. Case Keenum hasn’t established himself as a starter since leaving Minnesota.
They could have gone with a cheaper option and waited out Bridgewater, but there was no guarantee he’d return to the player he was before the injury — and he wasn’t certain to be a franchise quarterback when he went down.
The Vikings went all-out when they had a window to contend. Mike Zimmer’s defense was one of the best in the league, they had Thielen and Stefon Diggs, and Cook was beginning to look like a star.
Imagine if the Twins had done that when they signed Joe Mauer to his extension. Or the Wild when they signed Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. Or the Timberwolves when they had Kevin Garnett. Their sense of urgency was valid, and their options were limited — teams don’t just give away franchise quarterbacks.
But that $66 million extension is on them. They did it to clear cap space, and that’s why they could extend Cook or take a swing at Yannick Ngakoue. But they also did it because they believed in Cousins. He puts up the numbers. He hit Thielen on that immaculate pass. He won in the Superdome!
A win over a reeling Bears team on Monday night doesn’t justify the contract, but it starts to change the narrative around Cousins. He’s not all empty stats, like he was in the Week 1 Green Bay Packers game, for example. He’s able to perform in primetime. He can be relied upon when defenses take out Cook and make Cousins beat them.
He may never be as embraced as Bridgewater. He’s not a wily old vet like Warren Moon, Randall Cunningham or Brett Favre, whose jersey instantly becomes a novelty item. But he can become Brad Johnson, right?
If he’s able to ignite the offense and wring everything he has out of his weapons, which he’ll have to do against the Chicago defense, $66 million becomes more digestible. It’s just the going rate of quarterbacks in this league. It won’t seem so bad in two years. Look at what the Dallas Cowboys are going to have to pay Dak Prescott.
This is about us, too, though.
This is an arranged marriage. And while the populace here generally objects to marrying Cousins, we have no say in the matter. Just keep Keenum and wait on Bridgewater! I hear ya, and you can tweet it all you want, but it’s not changing anything.
Cousins is the guy. This team never was going to tank. Dreams of Trevor Lawrence or Trey Lance may dance in your head, but they weren’t ever going to wear purple. But a Cousins who leads the Vikings to the playoffs is better than a Cousins who leads them to 6-10 football purgatory.
I think if Cousins was just a locally famous dude who didn’t have the propensity to throw a pick at the most inopportune time, we’d embrace him.
Sure, he compliments opponents when they sack him. Yes, he says frickin’ unironically. You bet he’s a Trekkie. In many ways he’s a likable goober. Do you want to spend every living minute around him? No. But he’d be considered an amicable nerd.
He’s never going to be Randy Moss, Kevin Garnett or Kirby Puckett. But we could find a way to warm up to him. Tolerate him, at the very least. Do we want to eat his weird steaks or hop in his dented van? No. But maybe we don’t shutter when his Spire commercial runs.
A win in Chicago would be big for everyone involved. He’s 0-9 on MNF and 0-3 against the Bears, but nobody will care if he beats them this year.
