Smith admits he wouldn't kick off again to Peterson

Lovie Smith was asked if kicking off to Adrian Peterson with 1:38 left to play was the right call.

"The right call … you mean in hindsight?" the Bears' coach said. "Would I do it again? In hindsight, no, I would like for them to have the ball on the 20-yard line."

Instead, Peterson broke loose for 53 yards to the Bears' 38-yard line, setting up the game-winning 55-yard field goal on the final play.

"What we needed to do was stop Peterson one way or another," Smith said. "I wanted to stop him back on the 20, not give it to him on the 40 or anything like that.

"We have a lot of faith in our kickoff team, but just like the rest of our team (Sunday), we didn't make some plays when we needed to."

Splitting time: Devin Hester had several opportunities the previous week to practice the play that went for an 81-yard TD pass, and offensive coordinator Ron Turner predicted the outcome.

"Ron told him, 'You're going to score a touchdown on this play,' and he did," wide receivers coach Darryl Drake said. "We just need to continue to continue to bring him along and allow him to do those things.

"But we have to continue to do what we do on special teams because the threat of him being out there changes a lot of things; we get great field position. So we can't distract him from that either."

Job security: Strong safety Adam Archuleta, who was attempting to play with a small cast on his broken right hand, was benched at halftime Sunday.

"There were a lot of missed tackles out there," he said Monday, "and with my hand and stuff, it was a situation where they felt better with four healthy guys out there."

Coach Lovie Smith said later in the day that Archuleta hasn't lost his job.

"We needed to do a better job with our tackling," Smith said. "Adam wasn't 100 percent, and we had a couple other safeties that were.

"We felt like we wanted to put Danieal (Manning) at free safety, and we felt pretty good about Trumaine McBride playing (corner, where Manning started the game). But it's not like there's been a demotion or anything like that.

"Adam's still our starter."

On the edge: Even though the offense put up 31 points, wide receivers coach Darryl Drake wasn't in a very complimentary mood Monday, as he, too, seemed to think the collective effort in Sunday's loss could have been better.

"You have to come every week with your hard hat on and ready to play," Drake said. "I'm not saying that guys aren't doing it. You have to understand that you have to go out there and have that edge each and every Sunday, and you have to go out there and perform."