The first quarter of the season is over and it's now a good time to review the Titans'  basic stats.  As you would expect, after three blowout losses and an overtime win in a shootout, the stats are not pretty.

Before getting into the stats, I'd like to say that when Mike Munchak hired Chris Palmer and Jerry Gray as his coordinators, I was more confident in Gray's ability than Palmer's.  Now that a season and a quarter have been played, I'm now more confident in Palmer than in Gray.  The stats don't do anything to refute the reasons for that thinking, insofar as the offense has been outperforming the defense, especially this year.

And now, the highlights lowlights for the first quarter of the 2012 season, after the jump.

Thanks to PJD for Purple Jesus Diaries, Bloguin's Vikings blog, for helping us to preview this week's game up in Minnesota. In addition to answering questions for us, he also sent me questions I answered for him, which you can read here. Without further ado, the Q&A:

Total Titans: Christian Ponder: who is he, and what are his strengths and weaknesses? He's the only NFL starter not to throw an interception this year. Is he being smart with the football, just getting lucky, or not taking any risks?

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I'm not sure what Chris Johnson was thinking about as I took this picture in the last half hour or so before kickoff of Sunday's game against the Texans, but I hope it gave him the strength to (a) have what I thought was clearly his best, most consistent performance of the season and (b) survive watching the defense play on the sidelines.

When I wrote about the Lions game last week, I wrote that a lot of what happened in the game was not much of a surprise to me. The Lions didn't get the pass rush I was expecting, but the Titans scored on big plays, they had more offensive success throwing at the Lions' lousy defensive backs, and the Lions moved the ball up and down the field pretty much all game long. Sunday's contest wasn't quite as predictable as that game, but it was close.

What did I see?

The last time the Tennessee Titans played the Minnesota Vikings, the starting quarterbacks were Gus Frerotte and Kerry Collins. Wow, that was a long time ago.

For insight into what the Vikings circa 2012 actually look like, I'll be doing a question and answer exchange with Bloguin's Vikings blog, Purple Jesus Diaries. If you have any questions you'd like answered, post them in the comments section and I'll include them.

The NFL has started keeping track of player participation and making it available to the media. Here's how the Titans lined up in Week 4 against the Texans.

OFFENSE (62 total)
QB: Matt Hasselbeck 55, Jake Locker 7
RB/FB: Chris Johnson 49, Javon Ringer 9, Quinn Johnson 7, Jamie Harper 3
TE: Craig Stevens 39, Jared Cook 24, Taylor Thompson 18
WR: Nate Washington 58, Kendall Wright 53, Damian Williams 42, Lavelle Hawkins 8
OL: Leroy Harris 62, Michael Roos 62, David Stewart 62, Fernando Velasco 62, Steve Hutchinson 52, Kevin Matthews 10

DEFENSE (60 total)
DE: Derrick Morgan 49, Kamerion Wimbley 48, Pannel Egboh 13, Scott Solomon 10
DT: Jurrell Casey 46, Sen'Derrick Marks 39, Mike Martin 23, Karl Klug 12
LB: Akeem Ayers 54, Zach Brown 45, Zac Diles 35, Will Witherspoon 25
CB: Jason McCourty 60, Alterraun Verner 60, Ryan Mouton 15
S: Michael Griffin 60, Jordan Babineaux 57, Robert Johnson 9

Al Afalava, Patrick Bailey, Beau Brinkley, Tommie Campbell, Coty Sensabaugh, and Tim Shaw each only appeared on special teams. Byron Stingily dressed but did not play.