“Taysom played this thing just how I wanted him to play it,” Payton insisted. “And it doesn’t have to be aesthetically pleasing to be effective. The job is to win, and he did a good job of that.

“I thought Taysom played well, but he played an entirely different type of game — and that had a lot to do with me, relative to how we wanted to play this game. I was in his ear 24/7 just about being smart with the football.”