Cardinals' skid hits 4 in a row with ugly loss

No close call this time. The Arizona Cardinals' fourth consecutive loss, a 34-10 drubbing by previously winless Minnesota, was the team's worst performance of the season. The Cardinals (1-4) are 6-15 since Kurt Warner retired, and with a bye week ahead, there is no shortage of work to be done. Coach Ken Whisenhunt, who thought he had changed the franchise's long-entrenched culture of losing, repeated the ''keep working'' mantra on Monday and vowed that a good team will emerge. That kind of talk made some sense when Arizona's first three losses were by a combined eight points. There wasn't much evidence to back him up in Minnesota, though, where the Vikings led 28-0 in the first quarter.