Cardinal conundrum: Will seeds of doubt plague these birds?

One of the last places we saw the Arizona Cardinals in the regular season was snowy New England, where the Patriots took the Cards, bent them over a knee and administered the kind of spanking you rarely see a division winner take. The whipping was so bad, it violated several town ordinances.

Afterward, it caused the organization to take a serious look inward. Several players said so outright.

Kurt Warner and the Cards struggled vs. teams outside the NFC West. (AP)

"I can't get past any of them, especially at this point in the season," quarterback Kurt Warner said of the Cardinals' late-season defeats. "It's tough to shake anything. I don't know. We just have to figure some things out and get back to playing some good football again, because we're not doing it right now."

When asked if the team's confidence was waning, he added, "I think so. I mean, you put a couple of performances together like we have the last two weeks and you definitely don't feel invincible."

"I am actually going to go home and think about it and watch this game over and over again because something has to be done," defensive back Antrel Rolle said.

These are not your granddad's Cardinals. They are no longer the bumbling idiots and fumbling fools who once stood as a grand symbol of futility for many years. This is a well-run organization with some smart people in it.

Yet of all the first-round teams, none has more to prove than Arizona. Many in the NFL think this team is cannon fodder and lucky to be in the postseason. They think the NFC West champions are absolute frauds.

A win will prove their doubters wrong. A loss will cement them as postseason phonies.

No pressure, Arizona. No pressure at all.

Don't choke. Losing is one thing. Teams lose in the playoffs. It happens. Just don't get blown out at home or you'll hear it for months: You are who we thought you were.

I'm wondering if fans in Phoenix even buy into the Cardinals. This team makes the playoffs and, as of Thursday, there were still more than 3,500 tickets left. The league had to grant the Cardinals a second extension so a local television blackout was avoided. That's embarrassing and it tells you a lot about what Cardinals fans truly think of their team.

It's somewhat understandable. In four of their final six games the Cardinals gave up over 30 points, losing each one. Their only victories in those final six were against putrid NFC West dregs St. Louis and Seattle.

Now they're playing an Atlanta team with a solid rushing game, an MVP candidate at quarterback and an underrated defense. In some ways, the Falcons resemble the New England team that beat the Cards over the head with a bat on a snowy, ugly day.

If I'm the Cardinals, there is doubt circulating, and it's thick and palpable. Most of the time this season when they played a good team outside of their division, they were blasted. And now the hot Falcons come to town.

What happens this weekend will go a long way to determining not just this season but the direction of the team for the next several years. Is Warner the quarterback of the future? Do things need to be blown up and put back together again? Is this defense salvageable?

This is one of the few times I root for a team because there are a bunch of good guys in the front office and on the field (allegations of domestic abuse against star receiver Larry Fitzgerald not withstanding), but I get the feeling the Falcons might beat the beak off the Cardinals.

"I feel like if we have to win we can," receiver Anquan Boldin said after the Patriots game. "When that time comes, you will see the same exact Cardinals team that you saw earlier in the season. I am not worried at all."

He should be.