How Important Is Coaching??

I have this debate all the time with anyone who doesn't share my viewpoint, but I do not feel coaching in sports is as important as most make it out to be. Coaches make great scape goats when teams fail and they are made to be Gods when teams win, but how do they truly affect an outcome of a game? And in some sports, coaches are less important than others. A good coach is like a good official, they are there, but you don't notice because things are going smoothly on the field, court or ice. After each sport, I'll use a scale of 1-10 to determine how the impact of a coach/manager is to winning and losing. 1 being low and 10 being high.

Let's start off with Baseball, A Manager's job is very overrated. Teams are together for 7+ months of a year, traveling together and spending tons of time on and off the field together. It's obvious, not everyone is going to like everyone else, a Manager's job would have to be family/marriage counselor. Manager deals with the press and all clubhouse issues, but that once again is less on the field and more off the field. Teams hire an array of specialty coaches, hitting, pitching, fielding, etc, so a Manager's job is more of making sure his coaches follow his philosophy. As far as on the field decisions, coaches make the line ups, change the line ups, pitching changes and such. But, if a player is slumping, how can you blame the manager for that? I feel a manager can lose games by over managing, but on a day to day basis, I don't feel they have much say in a team hitting the ball, running the bases, making errors, throwing a ball 94 mph, etc. Scale of 5.

Football, A coach's job is more of a manager. He can't really control all 53 guys, but he can control his 10 assistants. He hires people who share his philosophy, but cannot do a thing about what happens on the field, he can only draw up the play and hope to call the right one at the right time. The best coaches are the ones on the field, the "general's" like Peyton Manning or Ray Lewis. Scale of 3.

Basketball, nowadays, NBA players do not even listen to the coaches. Plays might be drawn up and it's 50/50 chance if they follow the play. In fact, coaches spend their days stroking the egos so they feel important. And if things don't go their way and they sulk, coach can't bench them. Since it's a shot first mentality, whomever has the ball pretty much chucks it up.
Scale 1.

Hockey, Probably the best team sport for players to listen to coaches. Schemes are drawn up and are followed as best as possible. Scale 6

I can go into this more and more, but to leave you on this last note, how do you determine the validity of a coach? Record? Championships? Reputation? It's hard to determine who is good and who isn't. Guys like Phil Jackson, take jobs where he knows he will succeed and he succeeds. Other guys take jobs where they know they cannot succeed, lack of talent, support and means to win.