Much to the dismay of some, Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy was one of the most aggressive of his kind this past season.

According to the Football Outsiders Aggressiveness Index for 2017, McCarthy measured in the top-five of a multitude of categories that coincide with going for it on fourth down.

According to the index, McCarthy earned an AI [Aggressiveness Index] score of 1.62, meaning he's 62 percent more likely to go for it than the average coach in a similar situation. A measurement that only partially debunks a lot of the criticism McCarthy has faced over the years for being "conservative."

Based off of FO's metrics, McCarthy is certainly far and away from being the latter.

Much of the story in 2017 for Philadelphia Eagles coach and former Packers quarterback Doug Pederson was that he was more aggressive than 31 other coaches. However, according to FO, one of the reasons for that is simply due to the Eagles' tendency to face fourth-and-1 situations more often than any other team. 

"The Eagles ended up with 23 different fourth-and-1 opportunities that qualified for Aggressiveness Index," wrote Aaron Schatz, one of the primary composers of the index. "No other team had more than 17. Tampa Bay only had two."

Schatz's work included a variety of different situations that may or may not have qualified in the metric. For example, they didn't discount teams being in fourth-and-1 situations and then being smacked with a delay of game penalty, forcing them to move five yards in the opposite direction.

They also accounted for game situations, not grouping in teams whose backs were to the wall in games where they had absolutely no choice but to go for it on fourth-and-short.

"The Aggressiveness Index excludes obvious catch-up situations: third quarter, trailing by 15 or more points; fourth quarter, trailing by nine or more points; and in the last five minutes of the game, trailing by any amount. It also excludes the last 10 seconds of the first half, and it adjusts for when a play doesn't actually record as fourth-and-short because of one of those bogus delay of game penalties that moves the punter back five yards. Only regular season is included."

The information displayed through the index goes hand-in-hand with how efficient the Packers were on fourth down during the regular season. Of their league-high 28 attempts on fourth down, the Packers converted 15 of them, second in the league behind -- you guessed it -- Pederson's Eagles, according to ESPN.

The Packers finished the season with a 53.6 percent conversion rate on fourth down, their highest since 2013 (69.2).

Coincidentally, the aforementioned two of the three seasons that the Packers recorded their best conversion rates on fourth down in the McCarthy era are when they were playing with backup quarterbacks for a majority of the season. The only exception is 2012 when Green Bay finished the campaign with a 53.8 percentage.

In 2013, Rodgers missed eight games with a broken collarbone and in 2017, he missed nine with the same injury on the opposite (throwing) shoulder. It could be that with the likes of Scott Tolzien, Seneca Wallace, Matt Flynn and Brett Hundley, McCarthy felt more inclined to gamble in certain situations.

According to FO's index, the Packers were in 14 fourth-and-1 situations in 2017, and McCarthy went for the conversion eight times, or, 57.1 percent: fourth-highest among coaches. He was only projected to go for the first down in those situations 5.40 times during the course of the season, almost half of the eight he finished with.

When the Packers were in the NFL's average for field goal range -- between the 31 an 37-yard hashmarks, McCarthy didn't call upon Mason Crosby in 57.1 percent of fourth-and-1 situations. 

He converted a first down in four of his seven attempts, making his conversion percentage in that situation the third-highest in the league behind, surprisingly, Cleveland Browns coach Hue Jackson and the Tennessee Titans' Mike Mularkey, however, both had two and three fewer attempts, respectively.

While playing with backups at the signal-caller position may have attributed to McCarthy rolling the dice more than he typically does, the Packers' defense may have -- unfortunately -- played a role as well. The less time that unit previously coordinated by Dom Capers spent on the field in 2017, the better.