On Monday night, America fell back in love with Jay Cutler all over again. He’s burned us all so many times with back-breaking picks and sour-puss, nicotine-riddled faces that it’s hard to buy in, but the work Adam Gase has done with the oft-maligned Cutler is really impressive.

The Bears (3-5) aren’t great this year but Cutler looks good and he did again Monday, completing 27 of 40 passes for 345 yards, two touchdowns (including a game-winning one early in the fourth quarter) and an interception in the Bears' 22-19 win over the Chargers. 

Cutler’s typically underrated -- or at least over-scrutinized -- and his fourth-quarter record shows. With Monday night’s march down the field to beat the Chargers (2-7), Cutler now has 12 game-winning touchdown passes in the fourth quarter since 2009, the most in the NFL. 

His last score was perfectly Cutlerian (more on it in a second), an absolute fireball predicated on patience in the pocket and physical abilities very people in the world posses. 

Cutler’s now completing 62.8 percent of his passes and is sporting a 2:1 TD:INT ratio. He’s not afraid to make a mistake (see: the pick-six he threw to Jason Verrett early in this game) but he’s not making the same mistakes he’s made in the past. Under Gase’s tutelage he’s going through some sort of weird 32-year-old maturation. Unfortunately for Bears fans, there’s a good chance the work means Gase can land a head-coaching gig in the offseason. But for now it’s enjoyable to see a hyper-talented quarterback morph into a guy who’s actually channeling the talent in a fun-to-watch way. 

Cutler and the 3-5 Bears will try to make a second-half run for the postseason. (USATSI)

2. WHAT. A. CATCH: Zach Miller hadn’t caught a touchdown since 2011. When he made one on Monday night he made sure it was a good one.

On a critical second down in the red zone and the Bears trailing by five, Miller made a phenomenal one-handed snag of a Cutler fastball. 

Cutler ain’t afraid to put a little extra mustard on the ball and he put a full schmear on this ball to keep it away from the pair of defenders nearby. It’s this sort of physical ability from Cutler that always keeps us from totally writing him off (he’s been very good this season, actually). 

Just an incredible play by Miller.

3. Injury bug is brutal: Every team in the NFL deals with injuries. Part of life. But the Chargers situation is just silly at this point. Malcolm Floyd went down with a shoulder injury, left the game and could be done for the season.

Floyd’s departure meant the only healthy wide receivers on the Chargers were Steve Johnson, Dontrelle Inman and Javontee Herndon. It’s OK if you’ve never heard of Herndon -- he was added from the practice squad this week. 

4. Bears' red-zone defense: Why aren’t we more concerned about John Fox’s weird red-zone defense? I understand the logic of not giving up a touchdown. But the Chargers aren’t even trying to score here. 

With 11 seconds left on the clock before halftime and the ball on the 23-yard line, they wanted to try and pick up as many as 10 more yards to make the field goal a chip shot. Fox did this against the Seahawks too. 

He’s so insanely conservative he’s willing to concede a field goal from ANY DISTANCE so long as he doesn’t give up the extra four points. 

5. Beastly drive: Trailing 16-7 and badly needing points, the Bears stepped up in a big way late in the third quarter. Utilizing Jeremy Langford in the run and pass game, they marched 93 yards (85 passing) on a 15-play drive lasting 8:16. It put the Chargers on their heels, absolutely gassing the Bolts defenders and putting Chicago in a good position with 13 minutes or so left in the game. 

After a Josh Lambo field goal put the Chargers up 19-14 (the Bolts didn’t score a touchdown because Stevie Johnson spiked the ball inside the 5-yard line), the Bears put their big-boy pants on again and marched all over the Chargers, going 80 yards on 10 plays in 4:34. 

Chicago only possessed the ball four times in the second half but they possessed it well: a pair of 10-play drives (resulting in a missed field goal and a teeter), a 15-play drive and a three-play effort to kneel out the game. The Bears ended up holding the ball for 33:35 and just snuffing out an undermanned Chargers team in the second half. 

6. Criminally underrated: When people start talking about the best wideouts in the NFL, Alshon Jeffery rarely gets mentioned. He should, despite toiling in the Bears' offense.

On Monday night, Jeffery used his basketball body to pile up yardage and pick up another 100 yards, his third-straight game topping the century mark, setting a Chicago record.

Related: the Bears aren’t a traditionally great team on offense.

Related Part Two: How did Brandon Marshall never do that? 

7. Poor Philip Rivers: Feels like this is something we go over every week, but it’s gotta sting to be Rivers right now. He stuck around San Diego and signed a four-year contract extension and the team is really struggling to put talent around him. Granted: the injuries are terrible luck. 

But Melvin Gordon was a first-round pick and he just rushed 11 times for 31 yards in Week 9. Donald Brown was getting carries in front of him. There aren’t any receivers left on the roster at this point and the offense is basically Rivers dropping back, trying to hold off on getting drilled as long as he can before dumping the football off to Danny Woodhead. 

The offensive line is a rotating cast, with the only consistent guy (Joe Barksdale) being the one guy to get bull-rushed by Lamarr Houston and give up a pair of sacks on the Chargers final drive. 

After another 42 passes on Monday night Rivers has 390 on the season so far. We just finished Week 9. He’s on pace for 693 this season now, which would be the second-most attempts in the history of the the NFL. With the Chargers’ defense struggling and no semblance of a rushing game, it’s totally possible he breaks Matthew Stafford’s record of 727 in 2012. 

Current mood:

9. What’s next: The Bears are in a weird limbo where they’ve won three games (all against the AFC West, oddly enough) and could end up stealing a couple more victories (the Redskins, 49ers, Lions, Buccaneers all remain). A playoff run feels a little optimistic but it’s worth noting Chicago’s won three of five games with their two losses by a total of six points to divisional opponents. It wouldn’t be out of the question for them to be 5-3 at this point instead of 3-5. Nice rebound work by John Fox. 

The Chargers are hurtling towards a top-five draft pick after their fifth-straight loss. They’d be No. 2 overall if the season ended today. Five of their seven remaining games are against divisional opponents with a Dec. 20 game against the Dolphins looking like the last stand for San Diego football before a two-game road trip to close out the season. If this is how the Chargers go out in their final season in San Diego it’s pretty depressing.