The losses, piling up so frequently earlier this season, are gone but not forgotten.

“Losing six in a row,” said cornerback Patrick Peterson, “is miserable.”

But it’s also the reason Sunday, when the Cardinals host the Cleveland Browns at University of Phoenix Stadium, could be so special.

That six-game losing streak left the Cards with a 1-6 record. If the Cards beat the reeling Browns (4-9), however, coach Ken Whisenhunt’s bunch will have rallied to 7-7 with two games remaining in the season, a remarkable turnaround for a year that started so sour.

“I think it would mean a lot to our fans, I think it would mean a lot to our players,” Whisenhunt said. “It’s a big deal for us, to be where we were. That’s nice and it means a lot.  But we have done a good job in this stretch focused on a week-to-week thing and not getting too caught up in that. Hopefully that continues Sunday.”

The postseason – even if the Cardinals finish off their remarkable turnaround and win out to go 9-7 — is more of a dream than anything. Peterson was asked about the postseason, and after he started to answer, he caught himself, perhaps a nod to the focus Whisenhunt is emphasizing to his team.

“We want to continue to control what we can, which is winning our ballgames,” Peterson said. “So much has to happen.”

It still has energized the locker room beyond just a better record, however. “We have something to look forward to,” defensive tackle Darnell Dockett said. “Slim chance in hell, but you never know what will happen. It motivates you – we ain’t out of it yet.”

The Browns can’t say the same. After starting 2-1 and 3-3 under new coach Pat Shurmur, Cleveland’s season has dissolved into a string of losses and controversy, including the hamstring and contract problems of running back Peyton Hillis and now the handling of the concussion of starting quarterback Colt McCoy.

“Right, wrong or indifferent, we’re dealing with trying to change some of the ways you do business day to day,” Shurmur said. “It takes a little bit of time. I’m as impatient as the people that are critical of me. I want it to happen yesterday, but unfortunately it doesn’t. We’re just grinding through it.”

McCoy won’t play Sunday because of the concussion. The Cards will see backup Seneca Wallace, and coincidentally, will likely start their own backup QB,John Skelton, because starter Kevin Kolb also suffered a concussion last week.

Skelton, however, is coming of the best game of his career. He did have three turnovers last week – an issue Whisenhunt remains concerned about – but completed 19-of-28 passes, much higher than normal and what the Cards hope is a nod toward his development.

Whomever is quarterback has a suddenly stout defense upon which to lean as well – and the emerging Cards’ defense is going against a Cleveland offense that, even when fully healthy, doesn’t exactly feel threatening.

The path to .500 has never seemed as wide open this season as it does now.

The problems could have been long-term, from the day Kurt Warner decided he didn’t want to play football anymore.

Certainly, the Cards could have dipped, especially when Matt Leinart didn’t work out. The Cardinals didn’t have a good season last year, but the whole plan of an “aggressive” offseason was predicated on the idea they couldn’t go through it again.

Every team in the NFC West is in separate stages of a transition. The 49ers have a new coach but, for some reason, kept the same quarterback, probably keeping them treading water outside the postseason for at least another year. The Rams went through three seasons with a total of only six victories, an ugly path that finally earned them quarterback Sam Bradford. The Seahawks finally moved on from quarterback Matt Hasselbeck this year, and the early returns are that Seattle could end up among the worst teams in the league.

Given the opportunities within the division, the last thing the Cardinals want to do is bottom out.

“When they say a team is going through transition, I feel like people try to use it as an excuse to have a bad season,” tackle Levi Brown said. “We’ve got the guys who we got, and you go and play.”

The Cardinals’ visit to Seattle Sunday is a contrast in organizations. The Seahawks managed to win the NFC West last season despite a 7-9 record, and after winning a playoff game there seemed to be some momentum. The Cards seemed to be in limbo after a five-win season.

After the lockout, however, the Seahawks moved on from Hasselbeck and went with Tarvaris Jackson, as opposed to the Cards making the big play forKevin Kolb. Jackson’s acquisition – along with a massive amount of other changes – seemed to signal rebuilding.

“Our intentions were to go right back after it,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “Last year no one thought we had a chance to be involved in the division and we found a way. Every move we made was to get good right now. We didn’t try something for the future. That was not a thought.”

The bump that was 2010 wasn’t a thought for the Cardinals either. The Cards look much different than the team coach Ken Whisenhunt first took over in 2007 and even from the team that reached the Super Bowl a season later.

The last thing any coach wants to talk about is rebuilding. The roster infusion in the short offseason – including the trade of Kolb – was about immediate respectability.

“I don’t think about that, rebuilding,” Whisenhunt said. “When you lose good football players, it is never easy to replace them, whether it is through free agency or retiring. That’s why you have to bring your young players along and at some point, they have to play for you.”

Winning within that prism isn’t always simple, but starting over usually means massive change anyway. In some ways, winning is about job preservation for the guys already in place. It also helps you keep the good players you already have.

“We hope it’s the last time we have to deal with that,” wide receiverLarry Fitzgerald said about last season, and the idea of staying competitive.

That should serve the Cardinals well, even as they work through some of their own issues. The Rams are past their lowest point, but haven’t proven they have fully recovered. The Seahawks and 49ers seem to have a longer road ahead.

Not that the Cards are concerned about that.

“Don’t nobody care about the times you are struggling,” defensive tackleDarnell Dockett said. “They don’t care about that. It’s all about what you do on Sundays. We can make a million excuses about why every team is not winning, but at the end of the day, it is wins and losses.

“When we went through our drought last year, no one gave a damn. Seattle or the Rams might have a drought, but we don’t care, we have our own issues.”

When the Cardinals drafted linebacker Daryl Washington a year ago, they considered taking him in the first round before settling on nose tackle Dan Williams.

They made sure to get him in the second round, however, thinking he had star potential. There were flashes of that as a rookie, but in Sunday’s season opener, it was on display constantly. Washington finished with six tackles, a sack (credited with a half-a-takedown twice), a quarterback pressure, a pass deflection and an interception. He also had a second interception negated because of a penalty.

“It’s the first game,” Washington said. “I was looking forward to having a big game. Obviously us winning, playing at home, you’ve got to be happy with that. But I wanted to make a statement.”

The Cardinals underwent significant change in the offseason, with more than a third of the 53-man roster new to the team in 2011.

That still leaves plenty of players behind that were around in 2010, a miserable season that no one wants to repeat when the new season begins Sunday in the opener against Carolina.

“We know what 5-and-11 felt like,” defensive tackle Darnell Dockett said. “Look at the game film last year and look at how much we didn’t play together, how many mistakes we made. That sucks. To have an opportunity to redeem yourself, a lot of games will be personal.”

The game against the Panthers features plenty of storylines, from the debut of No. 1 overall pick Cam Newton as Carolina’s quarterback (and the way the Cards will defend him), the debut of the Cards’ own new players like quarterback Kevin Kolb, to the 10^thanniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Emotion will be plentiful.

More than anything, though, the Cardinals want to begin the season the right way. They can’t accomplish everything in one afternoon – the Cards won their season opener last season, and were 3-2 at one point before things fell apart – but they wouldn’t mind some tangible proof they have changed what ailed them.

“It was mentioned in training camp, because we wanted people to know what we went through last year,” running back Beanie Wells said. “We wanted to let (the new players) know we never want to go through it again. After a preseason game, it got erased. This is a new moment. We can’t take the past with us to the future.”

Dockett clings to the motivation. Others want to move past it. Coach Ken Whisenhunt said whatever works a player is fine with him.

“Last year was last year,” safety Adrian Wilson said. “Different circumstances, different team, everything is different. Different attitude. Last year we didn’t have a margin for error and that weighed heavily on a lot of defenders.”