Despite a season that has turned into Cardinals Nation’s worst nightmare — an embarrassing campaign if there ever was one that was recently lowlighted by a 58-0 dismantling in Seattle that was the worst loss in franchise history — we continue to hear the departure of beleaguered head coach Ken Whisenhunt remains far from a given.

At the same time, though, with heat from a frustrated fan base also steadily on the rise after nine losses in the last 10 weeks — following a 4-0 start that it turns out could not have been more of a mirage — we also continue to hear that major changes for the Cardinals are most definitely a given.

Just how major those changes really are, though, remains to be seen.

One popular school of thought is that Whisenhunt will remain the head coach but be forced to endure a greatly reduced role in personnel input and/or significant changes to his staff, especially on offense. That Whisenhunt might find those kinds of edicts too offensive is a strong possibility, which might lead to a mutual buyout of a contract that is currently guaranteed to pay him $5.5 million in 2013. In this scenario, current GM Rod Graves likely would be reassigned to another position and highly regarded defensive coordinator Ray Horton and vice president of player personnel Steve Keim would be promoted to head coach and general manager, respectively.

A much more radical scenario being bandied about is that team president Michael Bidwill, who had been laying noticeably low before declaring the day after the debacle in Seattle that Whisenhunt would definitely keep his job the rest of the season, will opt for a full-scale housecleaning and bring in a heavyweight GM to run the organization and decide on the head coach.

“It’s a tough call,” one veteran team insider told PFW. “You could make a strong case for either one of those scenarios. There are some people who want everybody’s head right now, right down to the interns and the towel boys. Then there are others who still show their support for Whisenhunt.