With three-quarters of the season in the books, it’s definitely not too early to take a look at the playoffs. If the season ended today, here’s what we’d be looking at (take these with a grain of salt since some are based on tiebreakers):

Before we get to tonight’s “blockbuster”, let’s take our usual look at what else happened around the league (I won’t get into Thursday’s game too much other than to say that Marshawn Lynch needs to be in your lineup except for Week 16 vs. San Francisco, and that DeSean Jackson shouldn’t be in your starting lineup if you want any shot at winning your league):

Let’s just get this out of the way now…Tim Tebow did it AGAIN! Ok, now that I’ve got the obligatory Tebow reference in here…other early-game action saw the Chris Johnson-led Titans surprisingly staying in playoff position by beating the slumping Bills, the Dolphins dismantling the Raiders (who gave up first in the AFC West to Denver), the Steelers asserting their AFC North dominance over the Bengals, and Cam Newton going hog-wild over the Josh Freeman-less Buccaneers. The Jets took advantage of 3 Shonn Greene TDs to take down the Redskins, Arian Foster led the Texans to a win over the Falcons, and the Tyler Palko led the Chiefs over Caleb Hanie and the Bears in a battle for crappy QB supremacy.

In the late games on Sunday…the Packers sweated-out a close one over the Giants to keep their undefeated season alive, the Ravens beat the Browns on the strength of 206 Ray Rice rushing yards, the Cardinals benefitted from Jason Garrett brain-fart to beat the Cowboys, and the 49ers barely had to break a sweat in shutting-out the Rams. And in the Sunday Night game, the Saints marched on and handed Detroit its fifth loss in its last seven games.

Despite the Chargers still being in the playoff hunt (mathematically, at least), tonight’s MNF is much better-suited to fantasy owners than it is to casual NFL fans. The Jaguars are 3-8 and just fired their coach, while the Chargers are 4-7 and will likely find themselves looking for a new coach at the end of the season, as well.

The Chargers have made a living off of starting slow and finishing strong but after starting 4-1 this year, San Diego is now looking to avoid their seventh straight loss. A large reason for that (as his owners can attest to) is that Philip Rivers has more interceptions (17) than he does touchdown passes (16) this year. It also doesn’t help when your best offensive players are either wildly inconsistent (Vincent Jackson) or can’t stay healthy (Ryan Mathews, Antonio Gates, Malcolm Floyd)…

San Diego boasts the league’s 6th-best pass offense and 7th-best pass defense, but they also have the league’s 18th-ranked rushing offense and 26th-ranked rushing defense. While that might mean great things for Philip Rivers, Vincent Jackson, and Antonio Gates…it also means great things for someone who I was shocked to see is second in the NFL in rushing yards. Know who it is?

I think we can all agree (including my wife) that I spend WAY too much time watching football, so I’m not sure how I missed this, but Maurice Jones-Drew is second in the league in rushing yards with 1,040! Unfortunately for fantasy owners, he’s only taken five carries to the house this year but as you saw above…the Chargers defense is ripe for the picking when it comes to giving up rushing yards. It’s a good thing for Jaguar’s fans, too, because Blaine Gabbert amazingly only has 331 more passing yards than Jones-Drew does rushing yards (in case you’re wondering…that’s NOT good). After looking at those statistics, it’s not surprising that the Jaguars have ridden Jones-Drew in becoming the 12th-ranked rushing offense in the league but have the 32nd-ranked passing attack.

Looking at this one fantasy-wise, I could see Jones-Drew having a big game tonight but other than him…there’s really no reason to own anyone else on the Jaguars unless you’re in a keeper league and trying to pull the equivalent of a “Suck for Luck” campaign. On the Chargers’ side of the ball…I envision Ryan Mathews and Mike Tolbert having a rough go of it tonight, while Rivers and his receiving targets put up some good numbers (and I’m not just saying that because my wife’s fantasy team needs Rivers and Gates to have a big night). One thing to note: Vincent Jackson only had three targets in the Chargers’ last game, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him have a disappointing game tonight. All in all, I just don’t see how the Jaguars are able to keep up with the Chargers, and I’m predicting a score of 27-17, Chargers.

As usual, let’s wrap it up with some of top fantasy-related news from Sunday:

–       Matt Forte left the Bears game with what’s being reported as an MCL sprain. Sources have him missing 2-4 games, and if that’s the case, his owners are going to have to make other plans for their playoff matchups.

–       Speaking of other plans, Marion Barber is pretty much assured of being this week’s top waiver-wire add.

–       Andre Johnson had a nice game (finally!), but had to spoil things by re-aggravating the same hamstring that made him miss all that time. The Texans are hoping this isn’t anything serious, but I think it’s time we all make arrangements for being without Johnson for our fantasy football playoffs.

–       James Starks sprained his ankle in Green Bay’s victory and was replaced by an ineffective Ryan Grant. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that Brandon Saine is going to end up being more valuable than either of those guys.