The folks at Football Outsiders took a look at aggressiveness of coaches on fourth down, and 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh shows up second on the list for most aggressive on fourth down. They created an aggressiveness index that looked at fourth down calls when the team was in the opponent's territory and removed obvious catch-up situations from the formula.
When it comes to aggressive coaching, on the surface Jim Harbaugh struck me as incredibly aggressive, but a closer look opens the door for some questions. We saw things like throwing deep to Joshua Morgan against the Bucs with a big lead, and the team's overall defense was incredibly aggressive. At other times, we see the offense go into a bit of a shell in a fairly conservative nature. This is in part due to the nature of the Harbaugh/Roman offense, but it still leaves me wondering what's what with it.
Where on the aggressive scale does Jim Harbaugh fall? He strikes most as an aggressive personality, but is it really that cut and dry?