On Monday, the Falcons-Saints matchup drew about as small an audience as a national Primetime NFL game can draw in 2026.
The game averaged just 11.9 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN Deportes.
For context, the Week 3 Monday night game between the Eagles and Bears drew 22.6 million viewers, nearly double the audience.
A week-over-week decline of roughly 50% is rare. But the disparity also illustrates why neither ESPN nor the NFL should be particularly concerned about Monday’s unusually poor number.
Through the first three weeks of the season, Monday Night Football had averaged 21.8 million viewers. Monday’s game dropped the season average to 19.325 million.
The decline is almost certainly attributable to the matchup and the game itself. Neither the Falcons nor the Saints is much of a national draw in its current form. Perhaps Michael Penix Jr. and Tyler Shough will become attractions. Today, they are not.
It was also an ugly and largely uncompetitive game, with Atlanta ultimately winning 45-24.
The NFL and ESPN likely knew this wouldn’t be a marquee matchup. Instead, they marketed the night around the 20th anniversary of the Saints’ return to the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina. In that 2006 game, New Orleans defeated Atlanta after Steve Gleason blocked a punt in one of the defining moments in franchise history, a play now immortalized with a statue outside the stadium.
The pregame commemoration of that anniversary was well done, even if more fans than usual skipped the game that followed.
Looking ahead, ESPN should have no such concerns this coming Monday. The network will broadcast the most intriguing matchup of Week 5, and perhaps of the season so far, when the Bills visit the Rams.
Buffalo and Los Angeles are the two leading Super Bowl favorites, and Josh Allen and Matthew Stafford are widely considered two of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. Patrick Mahomes, of course, remains firmly in that discussion.
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If the game stays competitive, the Bills-Rams could surpass the 22.6 million viewers who watched Eagles-Bears two weeks earlier.
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There is one complicating factor, however: the MLB postseason. Both League Championship Series will play Monday. Dodgers-Brewers begins at 5 p.m. ET on Fox, while Rays-Cleveland/Chicago begins at 8 p.m. on TBS.
The NFL game will undoubtedly top the baseball games in overall viewership, but the competition could prevent the Rams-Bills from reaching heights it could otherwise.
Interestingly, NBC will air the Falcons in Primetime this weekend against the Baltimore Ravens.
On Friday, the Ravens ruled out quarterback Lamar Jackson. The quarterback duo of Penix vs. Tyler “Snoop” Huntley is arguably worse than what ESPN aired this past Monday. And the NBC game will air head-to-head with Game 1 of the highly anticipated Dodgers-Brewers series.
Monday Night Football should top Sunday Night Football this week by a notable margin.
