Cardinals vs. Lions: Five negatives from the 38-10 rout

Finally, the streak was over.

I, for one, did not think it was going to end this season. But the Cardinals managed to go against all odds and break their nine game losing skid by defeating the Detroit Lions, 38-10 on Sunday. There were many factors that led to the sweet, sweet victory, but none more important than the overall play of the defense. They were absolutely phenomenal.

Still, there are always things we can take from the game that adversely effected/will effect the team. Here are five of those negatives.

The offense wasn't that great

Yes, the Cardinals managed to put 38 points on the board, but the offense still wasn't very good. Two pick sixes via Rashad Johnson and Greg Toler accounted for two touchdowns, a special teams blunder by Stefan Logan after a punt set the team up on the Lions' 5-yard line and another interception by Patrick Peterson saw the Cardinals within the opponent's five yet again.

The only true touchdown by the offense came in garbage time when Beanie Wells ran it in. At that point, the Lions had pretty much packed it in anyways. The Cards only had 196 yards of total offense, which is far from anything amazing.

Third down conversions

The Cardinals struggled on third down yet again, converting just 2 of their 12 attempts. Over the past 3 games, the Cardinals have converted 6 of their 41 third down attempts. The running game and the passing game have simply not been able to move the chains on third down (or on any down, for that matter). If the Cardinals want to win their next two games, that is possibly the biggest factor that needs to change.

Referees

Jerome Boger is never the referee that you want visiting your team's stadium. He consistently makes the wrong call and often makes calls up on his own accord. That happened against the Lions when Larry Fitzgerald somehow attracted a flag for pass interference. On the replay, it looked like nothing happened.

Then there was the debacle in the second quarter where the refs kept yelling "white ball, white ball!" after a Beanie Wells "fumble". The thing was, Fitzgerald had the ball in his hands! With that, they took even more time to review the call and ended up wasting our time.

At least it went both ways, I guess.

Injuries

Quentin Groves was forced to leave the game with an injured foot in the second quarter, which really thins the Cardinals' outside linebacker position even more. O'Brien Schofield is already out for the season and if Groves is forced to miss additional time, that would leave Sam Acho, Reggie Walker and Zack Nash as the sole outside 'backers. Expect to see Stewart Bradley play some OLB if needed as well.

Worse draft positioning

Now, before you jump all over me, just hear me out. A win is a win and it was nice to see after so much losing. Despite how much I cried on Twitter about how the Cards were doing nobody but the worse teams a favor by winning, I am glad they won. I needed a confidence boost and so did they.

Still, it's hard not to think about how many positions they may have lost by winning this game. Maybe it will only be 1 or 2, but will that cost them the opportunity of drafting a franchise changing player? We have certainly seen it before.

What do you think? What were your negatives from the game? Do you want to yell at me for mentioning the last one? Tell us in the comments section below.

We invite you to follow Revenge of the Birds on Twitter at @revengeofbirds and like us on Facebook. Also, follow me on Twitter at @TylerNickelASU.