Yes, the Steelers lost on Sunday, but all they lost was a game.

At least they didn’t lose more players to the Arizona Cardinals.

Since being named head coach of the Cardinals in January, former Steelers offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt has brought to the desert special-teams ace Sean Morey, punter Mike Barr and center Chukky Okobi, not to mention offensive line coach Russ Grimm. They joined former Steelers Rodney Bailey, a defensive end, and Oliver Ross, an offensive lineman.

As far as I know, everyone who entered University of Phoenix Stadium in a Steelers uniform safely boarded the plane back to Pittsburgh Sunday night after the Cardinals’ 21-14 win. Alan Faneca, however, was rumored to be seen checking out home listings in the Arizona Republic.

A few of these former Steelers employees might have had an ax (or a cactus) to grind. Especially Grimm.

During a chaotic Saturday night in January, there were conflicting reports about who was named the new Steelers head coach. One media outlet reported it was Grimm, the other reported it was Tomlin. It appeared as though Grimm somehow thought he got the job. But Tomlin was the Steelers’ man.

Okobi (who was inactive Sunday) was the heir apparent to the retired Jeff Hartings at center – until the Steelers signed Sean Mahan to five-year, $17 million contract. Okobi eventually was cut and picked up by the Cards.

Any shot Barr had at succeeding Chris Gardocki at punter was steamrolled when the Steelers drafted Daniel Sepulveda.

As far as Whisenhunt goes, he didn’t wait around for the Steelers to make a decision. He already had the Cardinals’ job by the time all that Saturday-night silliness happened. But I doubt Arizona was his first choice, and he was kind of regarded as the front-runner when the hiring process started.

So there were a few people who had this game circled the minute the schedule came out in April. Whisenhunt did a good job keeping his game face on in the final minutes. You know damn well the second he got into the locker room he giggled like a kid after sticking it to the Rooneys.

But this doesn’t mean the Steelers (3-1) hired the wrong guy. I have a feeling Whisenhunt will be playing golf a lot sooner than Tomlin will this winter (OK, if you’re really a hard-core Steelers fan, you got me on that one because you know that Tomlin doesn’t play golf. But hey, at least it sounds cool to say.) Tomlin might have brought in a new system, but the players stayed the same. And the gang of Spurned Steelers was well aware of those players’ tendencies.

Their knowledge of Hines Ward’s tendencies was useless since he didn’t play because of a knee sprain. At first, I wasn’t too worried about Ward being out because Ben Roethlisberger has so many people who can catch the ball. But the Cardinals shut down Willie Parker, which put a lot of pressure on the passing game.

Roethlisberger could have used Ward’s reliable hands. Ward’s absence made Roethlisberger even more locked in on Heath Miller, and the Cards had that all figured out when Adrian Wilson intercepted Roethlisberger’s pass to Miller in the end zone late in the third quarter.

Troy Polamalu’s abdominal injury was another factor in this one. After a slow start to his season, the safety led the Steelers with five tackles and three assisted tackles against the 49ers. Then in the first half on Sunday, he was back to his old pinballing self, bouncing all over the field. He had two tackles, forced a fumble, recovered another fumble and returned it 13 yards. But he didn’t play in the second half. CBS showed Polamalu on the sideline with his helmet off about 87 times, as if we couldn’t figure out he was hurt the first 86 times they showed him. Anyway, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Cardinals scored all 21 of their points in the second half, with Polamalu off the field.

I had a bad feeling when Kurt Warner replaced Matt Leinart with just under five minutes left in the first half. Polamalu eased my fears with his fumble recovery, but there was nothing he could do on the Cardinals’ opening drive of the second half, when Warner completed a bunch of quick slant passes to negate the Steelers’ blitz, just like Matt Hasselbeck did early in Super Bowl XL. That nine-play, 70-yard drive, which ended with a 6-yard touchdown pass to Jerheme Urban, tied the score 7-7.

Credit the Cardinals (2-2) for being good enough to take advantage of Polamalu’s absence. This is an up-and-coming team. The season’s still young, but the Cards are unbeaten at home, and they’ve played everyone tough. All of their games have come down to the final minute. Whisenhunt has them doing things the right way in the desert.

When you combine the Cardinals’ motivation for this particular game, their knowledge of what makes the Steelers’ players tick and their overall improvement, you can’t feel too bad about this loss.

Let’s not kid ourselves, the Steelers’ weren’t going to go 16-0 this season. Mike Tomlin’s not going to go 240-0 as the Steelers’ coach. He’s going to have to deal with losing every now and then. Of course, Tomlin’s harder to read than a Russian novel, so it was hard to tell from watching the game how he was handling the adversity. But I caught a glimpse of him in a heated discussion with one of his assistants in the fourth quarter when the game was slipping away. It was kind of cool to see a little fire in Tomlin. It’s a nice change of pace from the first three weeks of the season, when Tomlin looked so relaxed he could have been in a Corona commercial.

One thing’s for sure, it won’t be a slow News day at Heinz Field on Monday. Tomlin will have a lot of fodder for “The News,” his forum for singling out miscues. Tomlin’s newscast should lead with Ike Taylor’s maddening display. Taylor was more 2006 Underachiever than 2005 Shutdown Corner on Sunday. His unsportsmanlike conduct penalty helped the Cardinals along on their opening drive in the second half. Then Carey Davis was called for an illegal-man-downfield penalty on a punt, which forced Sepulveda to punt again. Steve Breaston returned the second punt for a touchdown, which gave the Cardinals a 14-7 lead early in the fourth quarter. Then Leinart reentered the game, and Taylor got burned on his first pass, a 38-yard completion to Larry Fitzgerald, which brought the ball to the Steelers’ 44 and got the Cardinals’ going on the drive that increased their lead to 21-7.

Some tough practices might be in order. Tomlin’s going to have to right the ship quickly because the Steelers face another team with a grudge next week when the Seahawks come to Heinz Field. I hope to see a nice gallery of signs directed at Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren for his whining about the officiating in Super Bowl XL.

After facing the Seahawks, the Steelers have their bye week. The consensus was that the Steelers needed to make hay in September because their schedule would be tougher after that. Now all of a sudden, that schedule doesn’t look so daunting. Of the Steelers’ 11 games after the bye, only two are against teams who currently have winning records. Do the Broncos seem so scary now? Or the Ravens? Or the Jets?

If the Steelers can tackle the rest of their schedule without any more defections to the desert, these losses could be few and far between.