Whisenhunt: ‘We’ll have to see’ if leadership is strong in Cardinals’ locker room

The NFL, due largely to its 16-week regular season, is the ultimate “what have you done for me lately?” league in professional sports.

When things are going well, as they did for the Arizona Cardinals during the first four weeks of the 2012 season, it’s easy to mask potential problems.

When things go south, however, covering up those problems becomes a much more arduous task.

During the Cardinals’ current four-game losing streak, a litany of issues between the white lines have been exposed, whether it’s a lack of pass protection, consistency in the run game or personnel depth.

But now met with a hard dose of adversity, Ken Whisenhunt
and Co. are presented with two paths heading into the second half of their schedule. The Redbirds can either allow their glaring on-field issues to seep into the locker room causing internal turmoil or unite around a common goal to get back to winning football.

In order to follow the latter path, though, Whisenhunt admits it requires strong leadership from the experienced members of his squad.

Whether they have it or not, well, the head coach didn’t sound so sure speaking with Arizona Sports 620’s Doug & Wolf Tuesday.

“Well, you know we’ll find out,” Whisenhunt said when asked about whether the Cardinals have the type of veteran presence to climb out of their mid-season hole. “I think we have a bunch of good young men, a bunch of good veterans and a bunch of good young players.”

Although the six-year head coach was somewhat noncommittal on the topic of his team’s makeup and their ability to bounce back from a rather futile month of football, Whisenhunt was adamant that he still believes his players have the same desire to succeed as they did four or five weeks ago.