For those of you who are already looking ahead to the playoffs. If the season ended today, here’s a look at the potential playoff matchups (take these with a grain of salt since some are based on tiebreakers):

If there’s anyone out there who picked Cincinnati, Houston, and San Francisco as the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th best teams in the NFL before the season, let’s talk… I’ve got a mortgage to pay!

There was a full slate of games this week (strangely, byes finally finish up after Week 11). In the Thursday game, the Chargers continued to prove Rex Ryan’s point while Denarius Moore and Vincent Brown made fantasy owners everywhere take notice. And don’t look now, but the Raiders are now leading the AFC West. Elsewhere, the Falcons blew a chance to even things in the AFC South, the Steelers re-asserted dominance in the AFC North with a win in Cincinnati (while the Ravens showed they’re more of a paper tiger with a loss in Seattle), and the Texans stomped the Buccaneers in Tampa Bay.

In other early games… the Dolphins took down the Bills, the Browns won a “thriller” over the Jaguars, and the Lions won a real thriller over the Panthers. Elsewhere, the Packers continued their march towards 16-0 with a win over Tampa Bay, the Raiders edged the Vikings, the Cowboys survived in OT against the Redskins, and Baltimore bounced-back against the Bengals.

And in the late games… the 49ers moved to 9-1 by beating the Cardinals, the Bears continued surging with a win over the Chargers, the Seahawks pushed the Rams closer to a top 5 pick, the Falcons barely beat the Titans, and the Eagles kept their season on life-support in knocking-off the Giants on the road.

In looking at tonight’s matchup, we have two teams that look to be going in two different directions. Just two weeks ago, the Chiefs were leading their division and the Patriots were left for dead. Fast forward two weeks and we have a Patriots team that’s on the verge of putting the AFC East on lockdown, while the Chiefs look like they’re more likely to have a top 10 pick than to make the playoffs.

After two straight homes losses to Miami and Denver, the Chiefs sit at 4-5 and are probably going to be without Matt Cassel for the rest of the season. Enter Tyler Palko to lead a team that’s already missing star RB Jamaal Charles (and no, I don’t think Tyler Palko is a good option as your fantasy QB). The Chiefs passing offense is already 27th in the league and I don’t think Palko is going to help that. I actually think it’s pretty likely that we see Ricky Stanzi in at QB by the end of the season, and that is not good news for Dwayne Bowe, Steve Breaston, and Jon Baldwin in terms of fantasy-value. Jackie Battle has led the Chiefs rushing attack to 10th in the league, but the Patriots typically do well against the run, and I’d envision tough sledding for Battle tonight. The Chiefs defense draws a tough matchup against the Golden Boy and will have to work hard if they’re going to improve on their 16th ranking against the pass and 26th against the run. Unless their defense can come up big, the Chiefs will likely be playing from behind a lot in this game and I’d imagine Palko ends up throwing the ball a lot. The question is, how effective will he be?

A couple weeks ago after the Patriots lost to the Giants, I questioned whether Bill Belichick had lost his touch. I may have been a little premature with that assessment and after he proved me wrong last week, I apologized. Well, I’ve taken the apology a step further this week and am wearing a hoody with the sleeves cut-off while I type this, hopefully that goes a long way towards earning BB’s forgiveness (like he cares). In all seriousness, I think Bill is a little more worried with improving his team’s 32nd ranked pass defense and figuring out how to frustrate fantasy owners with a Shanahan-like RB carousel. The Patriots rushing attack is 19th in the league, while opponents and fantasy owners never know who the lead back will be. Danny Woodhead, BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Stevan Ridley, Kevin Faulk? I won’t be relying on any of them to win my fantasy matchups, and I’d advise you to do the same. The Patriots passing attack is the proverbial basket to put your eggs in as they rank 1st in the league right now. Brady isn’t on 2007 pace, but he’s still having a great year and is helping both Wes Welker and Rob Gronkowski have AMAZING seasons. Aaron Hernandez and a little less so, Deion Branch, are other key cogs in this deadly passing attack and fantasy owners should definitely take advantage of any and all of the above.

I’ll be interested to see how Palko performs against the depleted Patriots secondary, and how the Chiefs defense performs against Brady and his high-powered offense. I think Palko will mostly struggle, but manage to get a TD or two to Bowe and Breaston. And I’d bet on Brady having a big game and mainly keying-in on Gronkowski, Hernandez, sand Welker. Dexter McCluster and Chad Ochocinco are two guys I could see being under-the-radars that make an impact in the game. Ultimately, I don’t see Palko and the Chiefs being able to hang in Foxborough (where the Patriots hardly EVER lose), and I’m going with the Patriots, 34-17.

And since this is the FANTASY Fix, let’s end with a quick look at some of top fantasy-relevant news from Sunday:

Good luck to all you Rodgers/Jennings/Peterson owners out there!