I'm glad to be joined for this week's Q&A by Brett Solesky of Bloguin's fine Bears site, Midway Illustrated. Check them out for more Bears coverage, and for my answers to Brett's questions.

One of my favorite simple measures for getting a perspective on how well the Titans performed on offense and defense in a given game is success rate. I've mentioned success rate before, typically in the context of evaluating running backs, but here's a brief overview.

A play is considered a success if it gains 40% of the needed yardage on first down, 60% on second down, and 100% on third or fourth down, with adjustments for leading in the fourth quarter (lower baseline on first and second downs) or trailing by 8 or more in the fourth quarter (higher baselines on first and second down). A successful play gets a 1, while an unsuccessful play gets a 0. This method has a number of limitations, which I'll get to later in the post, but it's a good initial gloss.

Here's what the success rate has looked like for the Titans and their opponents in each game this season:

Now, let's caveat the heck out of those numbers:

The Titans square off against the Chicago Bears this week for the first time since 2008, and for the first time at LP Field since the last NFL overtime game decided by a safety. To better know the 2012 Chicago Bears, we'll be doing our nomal Q&A with Bloguin's Bears blog, Midway Illustrated. If you have any questions about the Bears you'd like answered, post them below and I'll pass them along.

The NFL this year is tracking player participation on a weekly basis and reporting that information to the media. Per the NFL, here's how often which Titans played against the Colts.

Offense (59 total)
QB: Matt Hasselbeck 59
RB/FB: Chris Johnson 51, Quinn Johnson 25, Jamie Harper 4, Darius Reynaud 2
TE: Craig Stevens 42, Jared Cook 25, Taylor Thompson 16
WR: Nate Washington 43, Kenny Britt 38, Kendall Wright 30, Damian Williams 17, Lavelle Hawkins 2
OL: Steve Hutchinson 59, Mike Otto 59, Fernando Velasco 59, David Stewart 58, Kevin Matthews 48, Leroy Harris 11, Byron Stingily 1

Defense (76 total)

DE: Kamerion Wimbley 65, Derrick Morgan 63, Scott Solomon 13, Pannel Egboh 4
DT: Jurrell Casey 59, Sen'Derrick Marks 50, Karl Klug 21, Mike Martin 19
LB: Colin McCarthy 73, Zach Brown 56, Akeem Ayers 36, Tim Shaw 3
CB: Jason McCourty 76, Alterraun Verner 75, Ryan Mouton 44, Coty Sensabaugh 6
S: Michael Griffin 75, Jordan Babineaux 74, Robert Johnson 17, Al Afalava 4

Xavier Adibi, Beau Brinkley, and Tracy Wilson each only played on special teams. Rusty Smith did not appear in the game.

Analysis: For the second consecutive week, you see a lot of run game personnel up there. QJ's 25 snaps were a season high, and up 1 from last week. Jared Cook played his fewest snaps since the Houston game when he was limited due to injury, and the disparity between Stevens' snaps and his was the biggest it's been in any game he's healthy. The wideout rotation is the wideout rotation, and the offensive line is the offensive line plus injury-related replacements.

Defensively, the defensive end rotation is the defensive end rotation. Karl Klug saw the most snaps he'd seen since the Detroit game, and it was the first time since the season opener against the Patriots he'd played more than Mike Martin. Akeem Ayers sat for 40 snaps after sitting for 31 in the first seven games combined. I haven't loved his play this year, but there's been little to love on this defense. Zach Brown was the main beneficiary of Ayers sitting, and his 56 snaps were a season high. After this week, it's probably relatively safe to say Jordan Babineaux's time on the bench last week was the result of injury rather than performance.

The Tennessee Titans had their chances to win, and should have won, but fell to the Indianapolis Colts 19-13 in overtime.  Frankly, I wasn't surprised by the loss but was surprised at the way(s) the Titans lost - I was expecting a high-scoring game, something along the lines of 38-35.