Changes likely too little, too late for 2012 Arizona Cardinals

My cousin calls Lambeau Field “Valhalla”, and it was great to finally see the place in person.

Home of the Green Bay Packers and the Arizona Cardinals’ latest loss, is a hell of a place. The stadium is located in a residential neighborhood, and there is no upper deck — only a giant lower bowl. The entire city basically shuts down on game day, and even the local McDonald’s is painted with a green and gold color scheme.

It leads to a college-like atmosphere, with fans as knowledgeable as they are passionate. They really love their Packers in a way many of us would not be able to understand.

It’s a great environment to watch a football game, though I imagine my experience would have been different if I was wearing Vikings or Bears colors. If anything, it seemed like the crowd felt bad for me more than anything.

Seriously, the worst heckling I got was “Arizona? What are you doing here?

I responded by saying “Freezing my ass off.”

If posed with a similar question, the Cardinals could have easily responded with the same answer as the last few weeks.

“Ruining our season, one play at a time.”

It truly was a team effort Sunday.

Whether it was due to poor play calling, dropped passes, lousy special teams play or defensive lapses, the Cardinals once again ended up on the wrong side of the scoreboard.

Bad teams find ways to lose games, and right now the Cardinals are a really bad team.

It was fifth straight loss, and the only saving grace is that number six is at least two weeks away when they pay a visit to the undefeated Atlanta Falcons.

It will be loss number six, which will likely be followed by numbers seven, eight, nine and 10. It is simply tough to see this team turning things around.

Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt, ever the optimist (outwardly), refuses to give in and say his team is more the squad that’s lost the last five games than the one that won its first four games.

“We still believe we can win football games on the back end of this season and be a good football team and that’s what your focus is,” the coach said. “We’re not just making change to make change. If we make a change we’re looking to make our team better.”

Maybe he’s right. Just five weeks ago the discussion was about just how far the Cardinals could go, as their elite defense was enough to carry a pedestrian offense to wins on a weekly basis. The team’s arrow was clearly pointing upward, and there was little question that these were not the “Same Old Cardinals”.

It’s getting increasingly more difficult to buy into that line of thinking these days.

Sure, a change at left tackle may help, and it’s possible the emergence of the Michael Floyd will impact the offense in a greater way than we can speculate.

And with Beanie Wells set to return soon, perhaps the offense will finally have the balance it so desperately seeks.

Possible? Yes. Likely? Nope.

Call it pessimism born from a five-game skid or just an admission of reality, but things are not looking good for the team this season. No changes of any real significance will be made over the next two months.

In Norse mythology, Valhalla is a place where heroes slain in battle are received so they can wait before being deployed into battle once again. It’s a place of honor, glory, happiness.

The Packers have their stadium. The Cardinals, if they’re lucky, will have next season.

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