Payton addressed the fourth-down decision multiple times, and offered, “Obviously, disappointment. It starts with the head coach.” That was the best call he made Sunday.

You snow it. I snow it. Anybody outside the chowder belt snows it, too. Bo Nix doesn’t just beat the Patriots Sunday. He beats them by two touchdowns.

“It sucks,” inside linebacker Alex Singleton said. “I mean, that’s it. Those are the only words for it.”

The defense could no longer play hero, without Bo Nix to shoot fourth-quarter lightning bolts from his fingertips.

Third down, 5 yards to go, 2 minutes left in the game, near-blizzard raging. And what did New England quarterback Drake Maye do?

Payton labeled Stidham’s backward pass “a turning-point play.”