Offense good, defense bad. The Cardinals showed another side of their 2007 personality on Saturday; the flip side of their preseason-opening loss at Oakland. The trouble was the result was the same: another loss.

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The Cardinals, despite an outstanding showing by quarterback Matt Leinart and the rest of the first-team offense, fell, 33-20 to the visiting Houston Texans to drop to 0-2 in the games that don’t count.

Leinart, after some midweek scolding by coach Ken Whisenhunt, was right on target. He completed 7-of-7 passes for 70 yards and a touchdown. That’s a quarterback rating of 147.9. Backup Kurt Warner, playing with many starters, was right there with him. Warner was 7-for-9 for 89 yards (a 107.9 rating). Whisenhunt, disappointed by Leinart’s struggles last week, said his quarterback “got a little tough love this week. He was told to pick up his game. “And he responded.” Leinart said, “He’s been on me pretty good. But it’s a good thing because he is pushing me to become better. “I know I need to get better. … I was a little upset about how

— I played against Oakland.”

Leinart had even predicted to his coach that he would go 10-for-10. “He wrote it down on a sheet of paper and gave it to me.” Joked Whisenhunt, “Obviously, he didn’t make his goals. I’m a little disappointed.” The defense, however, couldn’t control the line of scrimmage. Add in another subpar game for cornerback Antrel Rolle and 10 penalties for 94 yards, and the Texans could move the ball whenever they wanted. Whisenhunt said his team played basic defensive alignments and got little pressure on the Texans’ quarterbacks.

“That’s the kind of situation where you want your players to win a lot of one-on-one matchups.

“That’s what this was all about. “Defensively, we didn’t quite get it done,” Whisenhunt said. Cornerback Eric Green said, “We didn’t do a good job on one-on-one assignments. “Of course, we’re not running everything. But that’s no excuse. “They’re not running all their plays, either. We’re talking basic stuff to see what you can do.” Linebacker Bertrand Berry said, “We realize we got a lot of work to do. “It’s better to have the mistakes in the preseason. We didn’t show as well as we’d have liked, but it’s not time to panic.”

What was particularly frustrating to the Cardinals is that they appeared to be on the verge of stopping the Texans a number of times, only to have their opponent convert on third down.

“The thing I’m most disappointed about, especially early, is we had some situations where it was third-and-long and we didn’t get off the field,” Whisenhunt said. “That’s an area we have to clean up.”