There would've been zero point to this exercise from 2001 through 2019, when ranking the best Boston coaches simply meant, "Who comes after Bill Belichick?"
But times have changed. The NFL no longer fears the hooded Sith lord, the game passing him by like Tyreek Hill, the Patriots suddenly in the running for not only the NFL's worst team, but its worst-run one, too. No one saw this coming.
Belichick's struggles raise a pertinent question at a time of flux for Boston sports. Just who is our best coach/manager?
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Alex Cora has now overseen consecutive last-place finishes, Jim Montgomery followed the greatest regular season in NHL history with an all-time choke in the first round of the playoffs, and the unproven Joe Mazzulla is only now really entering his first full season with the Celtics.
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So how does such an imperfect crew rank? And where does Belichick now fit? Let's give it a go.
1. Alex Cora, Red Sox
I don't feel great about this, thanks to those last-place finishes. But if we're talking about someone with both a track record (2018 World Series, 2021 ALCS) and a handle on the modern game, Cora fits the bill.
The Red Sox stayed in contention into August because of Cora, not in spite of him, particularly when it came to employing openers and juggling a pitching staff that basically only had two starters for more than a month.
Cora admitted in his post-mortem that the coaching staff needs to better prepare the players, and mental errors on the bases and in the field reflect poorly on him. But there's a limit to a manager's responsibility for, say, bad defense, when Chaim Bloom assembled a roster with below-average defenders at every position except right field and maybe catcher; it's hard to blame Cora that he had no one better than Kiké Hernández as his opening day shortstop.
But enough excuses. Cora needs to be better, and he knows it. Still he gets the nod here because ownership chose Cora over Bloom for a reason -- give him talent, and he'll know what to do with it.
2. Joe Mazzulla, Celtics
There's a fair bit of projection going on here, but let's not minimize what the Celtics coach accomplished in his trial by fire. Right up until the eve of 2022 training camp, after all, he expected to be assisting Ime Udoka.
Next thing he knows, he's thrown from the back bench to the big chair, asked not only to take the defending Eastern Conference champs over their final hurdle, but to do so while managing a fractious locker room that included headstrong types like Marcus Smart and Grant Williams.
Mazzulla led the Celtics to 57 wins and Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, where they lost to the eighth-seeded and less-talented Heat. Some of those losses traced to his own stubbornness, like refusing to call timeouts in the midst of lopsided runs, or taking too long to realize Derrick White belonged on the floor during crunch time.
But he also made the switch to double bigs that swung the Sixers series, convinced Malcolm Brogdon to embrace the reserve role that made him the Sixth Man of the Year, and oversaw the comeback from a 3-0 hole vs. the Heat that might have ended in history without Jayson Tatum's sprained ankle just moments into Game 7.
Mazzulla looks and sounds more confident and assured already, and we're banking on him carrying that growth into the season with one of the NBA's best rosters.
3. Jim Montgomery, Bruins
The reigning NHL Coach of the Year would give it all back for a different bounce vs. the Panthers in last year's first round. Bruins management was so shaken by the upset defeat that it briefly looked unclear whether Monty would even return.
Statisticians dismiss the importance of small sample sizes, but in this case, Montgomery's seven games in the playoffs mattered every bit as much as the record-setting 82 that preceded them.
He stuck with a hobbled Linus Ullmark in goal at least one game too long. He struggled to reintegrate captain Patrice Bergeron. He never countered Florida's aggressive forecheck, which constantly turned over the Bruins in their own end, right until the series-winning overtime goal.
That said, Montgomery can make this list look very different next year with a deeper playoff run, especially as the Bruins go younger and find ice time for rookies like rugged forward John Beecher and skilled counterpart Matthew Poitras.
A better finish with a younger roster would build on Montgomery's biggest strength, and that's connecting with his players in a way that eventually eluded predecessor Bruce Cassidy.
4. Bill Belichick, Patriots
Sorry, but this ain't a lifetime achievement award. As things stand today, Belichick is Boston's worst coach, and frankly, it's not even close.
If we rank them based on recent success, then Cora (World Series), Mazzulla (conference final) and Montgomery (regular-season record) have each outshined Belichick's lone playoff berth since Tom Brady's departure, which ended in the most lopsided postseason loss of his tenure.
But it's not just that. For all the talk of Bill the GM failing Bill the coach, they're actually inextricable. That Belichick believes the path to winning in today's high-octane NFL still runs through special teams and a rugged, physical defense is disastrously outdated.
So, too, is his treatment of erstwhile franchise quarterback Mac Jones, whom he has broken as thoroughly as any opposing defense. Rather than surrounding Jones with players who accentuate his strengths – quick decision-making and intermediate accuracy – Belichick has saddled him with the worst line and receivers in football. And that's after subjecting Jones to a year of Matt Patricia at offensive coordinator.
Meanwhile, amidst multiple benchings, the one constant has been Belichick's barely masked contempt for the QB he probably didn't even want to draft in the first place.
The Patriots are now a laughingstock of the NFL, and there's nothing to suggest Belichick can turn it around. His team is undisciplined, his gameplans routinely lead to massive first-half deficits, and the roster he built might be the weakest in the league.
Sorry, that sounds like the worst coach in town to me.