Some Arizona Cardinals fans are wearing paper bags over their heads in embarrassment, and players are running out of things to say.
All coach Dennis Green can say is ``you have to keep taking your cuts.''
``That's what it comes down to,'' Green said on Monday. ``You can't get out of a slump as a baseball player by watching the ball go by. You've got to get out there and swing, and so that's what we intend to do this week.''
The words are there but there's no doubt the fire is gone in Green's third season as coach. He has kept his job, apparently through the rest of the season, despite a 1-8 start _ the team's worst since 1978. The eight straight losses are Arizona's most since 1991.
There are seven games to go, beginning with a home contest against Detroit next Sunday, and the challenge is to keep the team from simply going through the motions.
``I feel like I want to take more of the blame than the players, to be honest with you,'' Green said at the end of his usual Monday news conference. ``I just feel I'm not doing nearly as good a job as I thought I would do and that we would do.''
Sunday's 27-10 home loss to Dallas might have been the worst yet, considering that Arizona was coming off a bye week and had two weeks to try to turn around an awful first half of the season.
``I'm disappointed in how we played,'' Green said. ``I just thought we could play better. I thought we could coach better and play better. So much of my career was built around this new era of coaching with byes and all that stuff. We've always been able to put that together and make good use of it, change the momentum and some things like that.''
Not this year, not with the Cardinals.
The first season in a fantastic new stadium has been one of the worst, thus far, in the franchise's already sorry history.
Rookie Matt Leinart, 37-2 in college at USC, is 0-5 since taking over as starting quarterback. After an impressive first two outings, he has struggled in his last three.
``This is a whole learning experience for me,'' Leinart said after Sunday's game. ``Anyone can say anything they want about rookie quarterbacks or whatever. I am my own worst critic. I feel like I should be playing better.''
Green said he does not worry about Leinart losing confidence.
``He's very competitive, he's learning a lot about the game,'' Green said. ``He's playing the game as on-the-job training, which you don't necessarily want to happen, but that's where we're at. I think he's always determined to come back out and play better, and I think that's what he'll do this week.''
This week might be the Cardinals' best chance for a victory the rest of the season. The Lions are 2-7 and coming off a 19-13 home loss to San Francisco.
``It's really a reality check time for us,'' Leinart said. ``We're grown men. We have responsibilities. We've got to be responsible, accountable for each other. We're in this together.''
