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The Bill Russell trade is the greatest in Boston sports history, but Bill Belichick to the Patriots may be No. 2

Forget, if you can for the moment, about how it ended.

Forget, if only temporarily, how Robert Kraft and son dropkicked Bill Belichick out the door.

Forget the graceless and transparent ending, a firing thinly disguised as a parting of ways, which hit a new low of tactlessness months later with a comically manipulative documentary desperate to make it seem like it was the only feasible act for the football world’s most patient men.

Forget all of that, the ugly punctuation on a glorious and unprecedented 20-year run of NFL excellence, if you can.