Look, Nix certainly wasn't perfect Saturday. Yeah, he was 26-for-46 for 279 yards and three touchdown passes. Yeah, he threw the go-ahead touchdown pass with 55 seconds left in regulation. And yeah, he made a couple of really pretty deep throws in overtime that were flagged for pass interference to set up Wil Lutz's game-winning field goal. But there were absolutely stretches of this game where it looked like Nix was a bigger part of the problem than the solution.
The new hero is second-year quarterback Drake Maye, who was far from perfect Sunday night but was frequently serenaded by chants of "M-V-P" by the sold-old crowd, delighted on an evening that was chilly but not frigid. These Patriots won four games last season and 14 this one, becoming the third franchise in NFL history to improve by more than 10 games over the previous year.