If in defeat, the Cowboys and Eagles continued to move the needle in Week 15 of the season.
As previously noted, Sunday’s Cowboys-Bills NFL national window on FOX averaged a 13.3 rating and 26.34 million viewers — the fifth-largest audience of the season outside of Thanksgiving (and seventh-largest overall). Buffalo’s blowout win increased 19% in ratings and 23% in viewership from last year’s comparable window on CBS (mostly Bengals-Buccaneers: 11.2, 21.45M).
The Cowboys have played in three of the top seven games this season, trailing only the Eagles (four) as the most of any team.
Speaking of, Eagles-Seahawks averaged a 10.5 and 19.36 million viewers on Monday Night Football — the most-watched Week 15 edition of MNF since 1999. (Keep in mind out-of-home viewing was not included in Nielsen’s final nationals prior to 2020.) Ratings increased 18% and viewership 21% from Rams-Packers last year (8.9, 16.03M). More details are available here.
Week 14 was the sixth of the past seven in which the top game featured Dallas, Philadelphia or both. The lone exception was the previous week, when the teams’ head-to-head matchup placed second for the week behind Bills-Chiefs.
Eagles-Seahawks was flexed onto Monday Night Football to replace Chiefs-Patriots, which instead headlined the early doubleheader window on FOX in two-thirds of markets. That window averaged an 8.6 and 16.44 million, up 9% and 11% respectively from last year.
In other primetime action, Ravens-Jaguars averaged an 8.9 and 16.31 million on NBC’s Sunday Night Football — up 6% from Giants-Commanders last year (8.4, 15.38M), but the third-smallest Sunday night audience this season. The AFC-leading Ravens have played in two of the bottom four.
Rounding out the Sunday slate, CBS averaged a 7.5 and 14.42 million for its singleheader window (Buccaneers-Packers in a plurality of markets) — down 17% and 23% respectively from last year on FOX (mostly Cowboys-Jaguars: 9.1, 18.66M). Despite the decline, CBS remains on pace for its most-watched NFL season since 1998 with an average of 19.28 million (+5%). (Keep in mind out-of-home viewing.)
Finally, NFL Network’s Saturday tripleheader averaged 8.77 million viewers (-2%). Additional details are available here. Thursday Night Football, a 42-point Raiders rout of the Chargers, hit a a season-low with just shy of eight million viewers.
