LAKE FOREST, Ill.  – Adam Archuleta’s trip to the bench Sunday apparently was only a temporary move.

The veteran strong safety was taken out of the Bears’ 34-31 loss to the Minnesota Vikings in the second half, but he has not lost his starting job. Archuleta, who has played with a broken hand the past two weeks, struggled along with most of his defensive teammates.

Safety Adam Archuleta broke his right hand in a Week 3 loss to the Dallas Cowboys.

The Bears replaced Archuleta by moving Brandon McGowan from free safety to strong safety, shifting Danieal Manning from cornerback to free safety and inserting rookie seventh-round pick Trumaine McBride at cornerback.

“When you’re playing a game like that, first off I felt like we needed to do a better job with our tackling,” said coach Lovie Smith. “Adam wasn’t 100 percent and we had a couple other safeties that were. But it’s not like there’s been a demotion or anything like that. Adam’s still our starter and we’ll go from there.”

Archuleta’s broken right hand has affected his tackling, but he conceded that the injury had nothing to do with the 60-yard TD pass he permitted on the final play of the first quarter Sunday.

“At times I tend to play with one arm and I guess it’s more of a subconscious thing,” Archuleta said. “At times I notice when I’m tackling I use more of my left arm and left hand, but it shouldn’t be that way. That’s on me. [But] broken hand or not, I shouldn’t let [a pass] get over my head like that.”

Silver lining: While the defense’s lackluster performance was certainly a group effort, Smith identified one bright spot among the darkness.

“There was one person that I would point out that had a very good football game and that was [defensive tackle] Anthony Adams,” said the Bears coach. “Anthony Adams played hard. He made plays, he ran around. We got good nose guard play throughout the day. We just need to get everyone else playing that way and we’ll get back to our old style of defense.”

Starting in place of the injured Darwin Walker, Adams registered five tackles. His biggest play came late in the game when he dropped Vikings running back Adrian Peterson for a five-yard loss on third-and-12, forcing a Minnesota punt.

Two plays later, Brian Griese’s 81-yard TD pass to Devin Hester tied the score 31-31 with 1:38 remaining.

Bumps and bruises: All-Pro defensive tackle Tommie Harris made just one tackle Sunday while playing on a sore knee, but the Bears aren’t using injuries as an excuse.

“Is Tommie 100 percent? No one is 100 percent this time of the season,” Smith said. “He was cleared medically to play, said he was OK. We had a lot of bumps and bruises, not just Tommie.

“As a defense, we didn’t play well. No one is satisfied with their numbers. Tommie is a part of it because he’s arguably our best football player, but again starting up top all the way down, we didn’t play well enough.”

Catch this: Sunday marked the first time that three different Bears wide receivers caught a touchdown pass in the same game since Oct. 4, 1998 against the Lions when Fabien Bownes, Chris Penn and Marcus Robinson got into the end zone. On Sunday, Griese connected with Hester, Bernard Berrian and Muhsin Muhammad.