Sports

‘Sunday Night Football’ Ratings Way Up With Patriots Win

(Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

Katie Jerkovich Entertainment Reporter
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The NFL’s “Sunday Night Football” ratings were up by 16 percent in the early numbers over last week’s game, according to Deadline.

The New England Patriots’ dominant 23-7 victory over the Atlanta Falcons was not an exciting game Sunday night, except maybe for the all the fog on the field at Foxborough, but that didn’t stop viewers from tuning in with the some of highest numbers so far in the 2017-2018 season.

Last night’s game, brought in the highest numbers in metered market results that the NFL has seen for a primetime game since Week One, which had 24.2 million viewers. (RELATED: NFL Ratings Tank — Worst Viewership In Nearly Two Decades)

FOXBORO, MA - OCTOBER 22: Tom Brady #12 of the New England Patriots looks on as fog falls on the field during the fourth quarter of a game against the Atlanta Falcons at Gillette Stadium on October 22, 2017 in Foxboro, Massachusetts. (Photo by Billie Weiss/Getty Images)

Tom Brady #12 of the New England Patriots looks on as fog falls on the field during the fourth quarter of a game against the Atlanta Falcons at Gillette Stadium on October 22, 2017 in Foxboro, Massachusetts. (Photo by Billie Weiss/Getty Images)

Despite the near blow-out by the Patriots, the foggy battle scored NBC a 12.6/21 in metered market results for the Week Seven game. That’s up by 16 percent over last week’s New York Giants’ 23-10 win over the Denver Broncos, which drew a primetime rating of 10.9/18 in metered market numbers and was up 3 percent over the week prior.

The Sunday night battle was also up by 9 percent over the same game last year between the Arizona Cardinals and the Seattle Seahawks.

The national anthem protest debate will continue, with Jimmy Carter Sunday siding with President Donald Trump that players should “find a different way to object, to demonstrate” instead of kneeling, but at least for Sunday night’s game it didn’t hurt the NFL.