A one-sided game still drew a big crowd. The Bills’ 23-6 win over the Vikings on Monday night averaged 21.7 million viewers, the most-watched Week 9 Monday Night Football game since the package moved to its current home in 2006, according to Nielsen figures released by the broadcaster on Wednesday.
The audience counts every feed of the game: the main cable channel, the ABC broadcast simulcast, a second cable channel, the Spanish-language telecast and the NFL+ stream. Two alternate telecasts of the game added a combined average of more than 900,000 viewers on top of that, peaking at 1.1 million just before halftime.
MNF dub! 😁
— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) November 10, 2026
@JoshAllenQB | #BUFvsMIN pic.x.com/uIj5BF9pCA
The game did not have to be close
Viewers stayed even though the result was settled well before the end. Buffalo held the ball for 42 minutes and 32 seconds, James Cook ran for 107 yards, and Minnesota’s offense finished with 178 total yards and went 0 for 8 on third down. Carson Wentz, starting for the injured Kyler Murray, completed 8 of 25 passes before he was pulled. The full game is in our Bills-Vikings recap, and our interactive breakdown shows how the Bills ground the clock down.
The matchup had a lot going for it on paper: a 6-1 Bills team against a 6-1 Vikings team, in prime time, with Josh Allen and Justin Jefferson on the same field. The fallout kept it in the news too. Wentz said afterward that he felt “a pit in my stomach,” as we reported in our story on his postgame comments, and a day later the Vikings traded for Kirk Cousins, whose return press conference we covered on Wednesday.
Josh Allen giving out some souvenirs on his way off the field 🙌 @BuffaloBills pic.x.com/PFbSeszR9O
— NFL (@NFL) November 10, 2026
Monday nights are up 24 percent
The bigger number is the season average. Through nine weeks, Monday Night Football is averaging 19 million viewers, up 24 percent from the same point of the 2025 season. The pregame show averaged 1.8 million on Monday, up 30 percent from Week 9 last year, and is running 25 percent ahead of last season overall.
After Week 5, when Bills-Rams drew 19.8 million, the Monday package was having its most-watched season since 1999, according to figures compiled by Sports Media Watch. Four weeks later, the average is still around 19 million.
Thursday night: a smaller Week 9, a steady average
The Week 9 Thursday game did not do as well. The Jaguars’ 33-10 win over the Ravens, with Baltimore down to its third-string quarterback, averaged 13.96 million viewers on Prime Video, well below the season average but still 13 percent ahead of last year’s Week 9 Thursday game, a 28-6 Ravens win in Miami. Through eight games, Thursday nights are averaging 17.15 million, compared with 17.29 million after five games, when Seahawks-Broncos set a Week 6 record.
Next up
Thursday’s Week 10 game, Commanders at Giants with first place in the NFC East at stake, kicks off at 8:15 p.m. ET, which is 3:15 a.m. Friday in Cairo; our Thursday night guide has the details. The next Monday night game is Chargers at Ravens on Nov. 16, at 8:15 p.m. ET, or 3:15 a.m. Tuesday in Cairo. Bengals-Commanders, Panthers-Buccaneers, Cowboys-Seahawks, Steelers-Jaguars, Patriots-Chiefs, Giants-Lions and Texans-Packers follow on the Monday schedule.
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