{"id":712901,"date":"2026-01-29T02:27:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T02:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/712901\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T02:27:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T02:27:19","slug":"nfl-playoffs-averaged-37-million-viewers-leagues-second-most-in-postseason-over-past-10-years-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/712901\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL playoffs averaged 37 million viewers, league’s second most in postseason over past 10 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are on the doorstep of the Super Bowl<\/a>. The NFL playoff bracket<\/a> spit out the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks to represent the AFC and NFC, respectively, in the big game on Feb. 8.<\/p>\n

This postseason has delivered iconic moments, including a vintage Matthew Stafford game-winning drive<\/a> on the road against the Carolina Panthers in the wild-card round, a jaw-dropping, fourth-down touchdown heave from Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams to force overtime versus Stafford’s Los Angeles Rams in the divisional round<\/a> and a game-changing blizzard in Denver that the Patriots navigated to beat the Broncos and win the AFC championship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These playoffs averaged 37 million viewers, according to NFL Media, which reported Wednesday<\/a> that those numbers are the league’s second highest in the postseason over the past 10 years.<\/p>\n

Eight of the 12 matchups were decided by one score, including both conference title games.<\/p>\n

The 2023 season’s playoffs still hold the top spot. Two years ago, the league reported that slate of postseason games made up the NFL’s most-watched playoffs, at least since 1988, when tracking began.<\/p>\n

Those averaged 38.5 million viewers, per the league<\/a>. As a refresher, that season the Kansas City Chiefs outlasted the Baltimore Ravens in an AFC championship that left the mistake-ridden Ravens asking “what if?” Meanwhile, Brock Purdy and the San Francisco 49ers rallied from 17 points down in the NFC title game to end the Detroit Lions’ storybook run.<\/p>\n

Also that season, Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen dueled again, with a missed 44-yard Tyler Bass field-goal attempt in the final two minutes spelling doom for the Bills in a three-point, divisional-round loss.<\/p>\n

This season’s playoffs were up 5% in viewership compared to last season’s playoffs and were responsible for the sixth-highest playoff viewership average on record, according to NFL Media<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The divisional-round games averaged 39.2 million viewers, per The Associated Press<\/a>, not far off the round’s record of 40 million average viewers that was set during the 2023 season’s playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We are on the doorstep of the Super Bowl. The NFL playoff bracket spit out the New England…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[117,215,2644,232,1036,260,391,231,113,7,872,110,58,32,249,6,84,499,252,261,15482],"class_list":["post-712901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl-playoffs","tag-baltimore-ravens","tag-bills","tag-brock-purdy","tag-broncos","tag-caleb-williams","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-chicago-bears","tag-denver","tag-detroit-lions","tag-football","tag-josh-allen","tag-kansas-city-chiefs","tag-los-angeles-rams","tag-matthew-stafford","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-playoffs","tag-patrick-mahomes","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-seattle-seahawks","tag-tyler-bass"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115976027901876240","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}