Still bad the day after

After further review, the Bears' defense still stinks.

On Monday, defensive players watched video of Sunday's loss as an entire unit rather than splitting into position groups, and head coach Lovie Smith sat in on the entire session, which ran about an hour longer than usual.

The performance didn't look any better than it did Sunday.

"We watched to make sure everybody was accountable," linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer said. "It was bad.

"We played as bad a football game as I think we've played since I've been here."

Players have talked about missing tackles and not being in the right gap as excuses for the pathetic defensive performance against the Vikings, but their failure comes down to one thing: lack of effort, which Smith all but admitted.

"When people came down to Soldier Field, one of the things they talked about was how hard we play," Smith said. "And when you say playing hard, normally what that says is you see the ball carrier, and you see most of our defense around him. That wasn't the case (Sunday).

"When you have a guy break long runs like that, and he's (only) having to beat one player, it isn't good. That's not what we're about, but that's what we were (Sunday)."

What the Bears were on defense was a group that didn't match the Vikings' effort or intensity. That was part of Smith's message to his defense, according to safety Adam Archuleta.

"The message (was), 'This is unacceptable; we still have a lot of ball left, but we have to look in the mirror,' " Archuleta said. "We all have to look at ourselves and really be critical (and ask ourselves), if we're going out there and playing physical and playing with effort and playing Chicago Bear football."

The Vikings ran the ball 42 times, but defensive tackle Tommie Harris had just 1 assist and no solo tackles. Backup linemen Israel Idonije and Antonio Garay each had 1 tackle, and Alex Brown had a pair.

Six-time Pro Bowl middle linebacker Brian Urlacher had 5 tackles, less than half his average, fueling speculation that there's something more serious responsible for his weekly skipping of Friday practice than "general soreness."

Weak-side linebacker Lance Briggs was the only Bear who had double-digit tackles with 10.

"We need to raise the intensity level," Hillenmeyer said. "The coaches a lot of times would stop the film at the end of a play and say, 'How many jerseys are in the film right now?' They like it when you can see all 11 jerseys when the ball carrier is being tackled.

"Even when we did make the tackle (Sunday), there were a lot of shots where only one or two guys were in the film."

Only one defender played well enough to be singled out by Smith.

"Anthony Adams played hard. He made plays, he ran around," Smith said. "We just need to get everyone else playing that way and we'll get back to our old style of defense."

Adams started at nose tackle in place of Darwin Walker, who was out with a sprained knee.

Harris suffered a sprained knee against Dallas in Week 3 and didn't miss a game. But lingering soreness and the extensive practice time he has missed while rehabbing the injury could be a reason for Harris' ineffectiveness. But Smith said Harris was fine Sunday.

"No one is 100 percent this time of the season," Smith said. "(Harris) was cleared medically to play, he said he was OK. We had a lot of bumps and bruises, not just Tommie. No one is satisfied with their numbers.

"Tommie is a part of it because he's arguably our best football player, but starting up top and all the way down, we didn't play well enough."

Through six games the Bears have allowed 149 points; at the same point last season they had allowed 59. It took 12 complete games last season for the Bears to give up 150 points.

"We need to get back to it," Smith said of the defense. "It's not like it's something that we haven't done. We just need to get back to it some kind of way."

At 2-4, with the 13th-best record in the 16-team NFC, they need to do it in a hurry.