On NBC, 29 million people watched the Browns-Texans game, which Houston won 45-14. Peacock averaged 23 million viewers for Saturday night's Dolphins-Chiefs game, which the team won by a score of 26-7.
Despite ending before halftime, Sunday's Packers-Cowboys game on Fox averaged 40 million viewers. An average of 35.8 million people tuned in to see the Rams-Lions game on Sunday night
CBS's Steelers-Bills game drew 31 million viewers (31-17), while 28.6 million watched the Eagles-Buccaneers game (32-9) on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2.
The most watched game last year was the Giants-Vikings on Fox, which drew 33.2 million people. That's a significant drop from the all-time high for wild cards in January 2024.
In January 2023, there were more wild-card games that went down: Dolphins-Bills at 30.87 million, Seahawks-49ers at 27.46 million, Chargers-Jaguars at 20.6 million, Ravens-Bengals at 26.87 million, and Cowboys-Buccaneers at 30.1 million.
Compared to last year's Saturday night NBC game between Los Angeles and Jacksonville, this year's Peacock matchup between Kansas City and Miami surprise attracted more viewers.
In the end? The Cowboys start by delivering. Secondly, compared to last year's game at 1:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, the Steelers and Bills' late Monday afternoon matchup attracted more viewers. In the event that the NFL's wild-card weekend falls on the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, it is possible that the schedule will be adjusted to feature two games on Saturday, two games on Sunday, and two games on Monday.
It appears like a lot of people would rather have three days of doubleheaders than a 10-hour Sunday marathon with three games in a row.