Among the endless nightmare scenarios that can play out in a quarterback’s head is being backed up against his own goal line as the clock ticks down and fumbling the snap away to squander the game.
That happened to Bills star passer Josh Allen on Sunday when he lost the center-quarterback exchange with less than a minute left and the Bills leading, 27-23, and the Vikings recovered for a touchdown. Allen was able to quickly rally Buffalo to tie it and force overtime (helped by an officiating error), but the Vikings cemented the 33-30 win after a field goal and an interception in the waning minutes of overtime.
This was the same game that saw Vikings receiver Justin Jefferson make a critical one-handed reception that is a candidate for one of the best in NFL history.
Just a bonkers game.
This TD gave the Vikings a 30-27 lead after trailing 27-10.
What an incredible comeback. pic.twitter.com/jZKc3Mf60I
— NFL (@NFL) November 14, 2022
So how many people watched it?
The game was part of Fox’s 1 p.m. window and viewed by most of the county, averaging 16.2 million viewers. The other early games on the network were Detroit’s 31-30 win over Chicago after scoring 21 fourth-quarter points, and T.J. Watt returning after two months to help Pittsburgh beat New Orleans 20-10.
Despite the thrills of Minnesota’s victory, it wasn’t the most-watched game this weekend. Not even close — those are the perils of the highlight moments coming late in a broadcast.
Green Bay’s 31-28 overtime victory over visiting Dallas averaged 29.2 million viewers for Fox in the late afternoon window. That game was seen by most of the country except for Arizona and Southern California getting Cardinals-Rams.
At nearly 30 million viewers — the Cowboys and Packers are two of the biggest fanbases in the league — that is the NFL’s largest audience so far this season and is the sort of regular-season viewership normally seen on Thanksgiving. In fact, it beat two of the three Turkey Day games from 2021 but trails the Raiders-Cowboys game on that day (40.2 million average, after a Nielsen adjustment stemming from an undercounting tech error).
Sunday’s game also topped four of the six Wild Card playoff games last season and came close to the Bengals–Titans divisional round game (30.7 million).
Fox’s Sunday afternoon late games are averaging 24.3 million viewers, per Fox’s strategy and analytics chief, Michael Mulvihill. Those games are the most-watched programming in all of U.S. television, the network said.
FOX’s America’s Game of the Week – the Sunday 4:25 games – are averaging 24.3m viewers, up +11% over 2021, tracking at a six-year high and the #1 show on TV. https://t.co/YqYWreYKuw
— Michael Mulvihill (@mulvihill79) November 15, 2022
CBS again had a single-header window with four early games that averaged 14.46 million viewers, which the network said was up 26 percent over the comparable week last season. The games in that window on Sunday were Jags-Chiefs, Texans–Giants, Browns–Dolphins and Broncos-Titans.
The network’s late game was Colts-Raiders, a contest most notable for Indianapolis interim coach Jeff Saturday winning his debut after being hired directly out of the broadcast booth in a Jim Irsay decision that sparked controversy.
The Commanders’ upset of the undefeated Eagles on ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” averaged 12.76 million viewers for ESPN. Heading into the game, the network said MNF was averaging 14.3 million viewers, which is a 4-percent increase over 2021.
GO DEEPER
Calling Bills-Vikings, Bill Cowher speaks out and more Week 10 NFL media thoughts
NFL INTERNATIONAL: The NFL’s first game in Germany averaged 5.54 million viewers on the NFL Network on Sunday morning, when the Buccaneers beat the Seahawks, 21-16, in a battle of the 1976 expansion teams at Allianz Arena in Munich.
That’s the best known audience number for an NFL international series game this season, and the best in NFL Network history, the league said. I say “best known” because the Broncos-Jaguars game in London at Wembley Stadium on Oct. 30 streamed exclusively on ESPN+ and no viewership metrics were released.
Giants-Packers at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Oct. 9 averaged 5.22 million viewers on the NFL Network, an improvement on the Vikings-Saints game at the same venue on Oct. 2 that averaged 4.62 million viewers on the same channel.
The last international game this season is 49ers-Cardinals next Monday from Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca. It kicks off at 8:15 p.m. on a Monday night on ESPN, meaning it should get a more traditional NFL-sized audience.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on Saturday said the league will hold at least four more games in Germany through 2025, and they’ll be played in Munich and Frankfurt. The league has also said France and Spain are potential game sites in the future.
NFL ON AMAZON: The NFL’s Great Amazon Prime Video Experiment is showing some disconcerting trends, if anything can actually be disconcerting for Jeff Bezos and Goodell. Last week’s Panthers–Falcons “Thursday Night Football” game on Amazon averaged 6.8 million viewers, via Nielsen-only data, and 8 million per Nielsen + Amazon’s first-party data.
Those are season lows after nine games. TNF, for which Amazon is paying more than a billion dollars a season, is averaging 11.4 million viewers, per its data, or 9.65 million per Nielsen — and it’s the latter number that the streamer uses as its audience guarantee with advertisers. It promised a 12.5-million average this season, which it could still reach as the season winds down.
Amazon had six TNF games left. Oh, and it’s laying off 10,000 of its 1.5 million global employees, mostly in corporate and tech roles, the New York Times reported. While unlikely to have any direct TNF affect, it’s something to keep an eye on in general amid global economic uncertainty that has seen mounting layoffs in tech, media, and elsewhere. Warner Bros. Discovery Sports cut about 70 staffers, mostly at Turner Sports and Bleacher Report today, per SBJ.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL: Alabama needed a pair of fourth-quarter field goals to fend off Ole Miss, 30-24, in Mississippi on Saturday, which made for great TV. The game averaged 8.7 million viewers for CBS, which the network said was up almost 80 percent over last year’s game and is the most-watched game in the rivalry’s history. It peaked at close to 12 million viewers.
The rivalry, which began in 1894 and has been played annually since 1964, has mostly been a one-sided affair: Alabama now leads 54-10-2. The Rebels last won in 2015.
Next up in eyeball haul was TCU-Texas in national prime time that averaged 5.03 million for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff on ABC. Earlier in the day, ABC got a 3.87 million average for Nebraska-Michigan at 3:30 p.m.
Fox’s “Big Noon Kickoff” featuring Ohio State’s rout of Indiana averaged 3.33 million viewers.
Top-ranked Georgia’s rout of Mississippi State averaged 3.34 million viewers for ESPN at 7 p.m.
While a lot of fans may be looking ahead to Michigan-Ohio State after Thanksgiving, we have a week of games ahead of that. Some of the potential big audience matchups include Michigan-Illinois (ABC), Baylor-TCU (Fox) and Nebraska–Wisconsin (ESPN) all at noon, and then Maryland-Ohio State (ABC), Clemson-Miami (ESPN) and Kentucky-Georgia (CBS), all at 3:30 p.m. (plus Minnesota-Iowa at 4 p.m. on Fox).
And in prime time, South Carolina-Tennessee (ESPN, 7 p.m.), Oklahoma–Oklahoma State (ABC, 7:30 p.m.), and USC–UCLA (Fox, 8 p.m.). For the late-night sickos, Oregon-Utah at 10:30 p.m. on ESPN is the main course.
INTERESTING NOTE: The Season 5 premiere of Western drama “Yellowstone” on Paramount and its sibling networks (CMT, MTV, Comedy Central, Pop, VH1 and TV Land) averaged a combined 12.49 million viewers on Sunday, which tops all non-NFL programming and four of the six World Series and NBA Finals games, the Masters final round, and all but one Amazon TNF game, per Sportico’s Anthony Crupi.
Season 5 premiere of 𝘠𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘦 averaged 12.493M viewers across Paramount (9.41M) and its sibling channels CMT, MTV, Comedy Central, Pop, VH1 and TV Land. That’s higher than every non-NFL programming on TV and topped 4 of 6 World Series games.
— Anthony Crupi (@crupicrupicrupi) November 15, 2022
That’s reflective of the wider trend of live sports beating out most everything else on television, especially scripted shows, amid the cord-cutting trend amid the rise of streaming options. It’s why networks and tech companies are willing to pay hefty sums for sports rights, because few non-sports shows generate the same number of eyeballs.
All viewership data is from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, and other metrics via the TV networks, Nielsen, Sports Media Watch, ShowBuzz Daily, 506Sports.com and the leagues. All times Eastern unless otherwise noted.
(Photo: Isaiah Vazquez / Getty Images)
