Ranking Callahan - Does it Matter?

Bill Callahan would never win a popularity contest with Redskins fans, media and the analytics geeks that think they have all the answers to all of football's offensive woes. For the Redskins interim coach, only one thing matters...winning. A Sunday W gets him to (4-4) since he took over.

Jay Gruden and the Redskins started the year off (0-5). They had no chance almost from the start. 

With a win on Sunday in Green Bay, his replacement, Bill Callahan will be an even .500 in half a season of games as the interim head coach. 

Yet, almost nobody wants him to remain head coach and the Redskins have already been reaching out to candidates per Albert Breer of the MMQB and SI.com. 

 Here's how Callahan is being viewed by the two top head coaching rankings' sites. 

According to EDJ Sports, Callahan and Gruden as a tag-team are ranked 29th in the NFL. 

The Redskins are (3-9) and I get it, but Callahan has done a better job than anyone will give him credit for. 

He's old-fashioned, boring to some and unpopular at times with his players because he makes them work hard. 

According to the same ranking system, he has an EPI rank of No. 30. EPI is defined as "how teams have performed overall (offense, defense, special teams) in every situation over the season."

However, in the same site's CCI (Critical Call Index), the Redskins (Callahan/Gruden) are ranked 21st.

That's ahead of Sean McVay and way ahead of Pete Carroll. 

The site defines this ranking as "an analysis of offensive play calling on 4th downs and compares teams in terms of GWC lost, on a normalized basis so that all teams are given the same test. Additionally, the CCI rankings are adjusted to account for the frequency and situational nature of critical calls to allow for fair comparisons of all 32 teams.

GWC is defined as a  "team’s win probability at any point in the game and is generated from the proprietary EDJ Football simulation model."

Basically, there's no chance the Redskins are using this simulation model to guide decisions and it sounds like the Cowboys and Jason Garrett aren't buying it either. Maybe they should?

On another site, HeadCoachRanking.com, Callahan is ranked the 10th best coach right now in the NFL. 

He's graded a 7.1, which is also the same grade as Bruce Arians, Jon Gruden and yes, Garrett. That almost makes it seem laughable but try not to kill the messenger. 

Last week after the Panthers win, Callahan was ranked as tied for the third best NFL coach of the weekend, with an 8.2 rank. 

For context: The website "assigns a grade to the in-game performance of NFL head coaches each week. Our knowledgeable graders analyze each head coach’s performance in 5 key areas of decision making. After determining their “HCR” (Head Coach Ranking), we rank them from best to worst."

As usual with rankings and lists, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and Callahan's style is never going to win him those sexy points but he and the Redskins are heading in the right direction. 

Chris Russell is the Publisher of Maven & Sports Illustrated's Washington Redskins channel. He can be heard on 106.7 The FAN in the Washington D.C. area and world-wide on Radio.com. Chris also hosts the "Locked on Redskins" Podcast and can be read via subscription to Warpath Magazine. You can e-mail Chris at russellmania09@Gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @Russellmania621.