Power rankings: Bill Belichick is having one of the best coaching seasons of his career

Sean McDermott is right. It didn’t take a coaching genius to come up with the gameplan the New England Patriots used to beat the Buffalo Bills on Monday night.

But watching that wind-blown game, when the Patriots attempted just three passes — the fewest by any NFL team in a game since 1974 — it still was hard not marvel at what Belichick is doing in New England.

Belichick, for my money, is the greatest coach in NFL history, and paired with Tom Brady, the greatest quarterback in NFL history, it’s no surprise the Patriots were able to dominate the league for two decades.

New England won six Super Bowl championships and 17 AFC East titles in a 19-year span with Brady and Belichick as co-pilots, posting 17 straight seasons with double-digit victories.

That all came to an end last year, when Brady bolted for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he won his seventh Super Bowl, while the Patriots slumped to a 7-9 record (oh, how the Detroit Lions long for slumps like that).

This year, the Patriots are back atop the AFC playoff race, winners of an NFL-best seven straight games, and it’s due in large part to Belichick’s mastery.

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Monday’s gameplan aside, Belichick has built the NFL’s best defense, paired it with a reliable running game, and found himself what might be the best young quarterback in the NFL.

Mac Jones, who finished 2 of 3 passing for 19 yards Monday, was NFL-ready coming out of Alabama, but still has managed to exceed expectations this fall. The fifth quarterback taken in April’s draft, he’s accurate, he takes care of the football and he’s shown the advanced ability to win within various types of gameplans.

Jones should be the favorite for NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year, ahead of Ja’Marr Chase, and Belichick is in line for his fourth NFL Coach of the Year Award; amazingly he has not won the award since 2010.

The Arizona Cardinals’ Kliff Kingsbury and Green Bay Packers’ Matt LaFleur have done wonderful coaching jobs this season, too, but when a Hall-of-Fame coach is doing arguably the best coaching of his career, it’s hard to overlook.

The Patriots check in at No. 5 on this week’s power rankings, behind Kingsbury’s Cardinals, LaFleur’s Packers, Brady’s Buccaneers and those pesky Kansas Chiefs, who continue to win games. As bad as they’ve looked at times, that’s a team no one wants to face in the playoffs.