Here's how Aaron Rodgers' season-ending injury impacts NFL TV schedule
The NFL shares the Aaron Rodgers angst with so many fans across the country. The new Jets quarterback was a quaranteed draw, bringing in larger audiences to games that already were the most popular programming on TV.
All you had to do was look at the audience numbers for Monday Night Football. Rodgers popped his Achilles on the fourth offensive snap of the game. But more than 22.6 million fans tuned into the 2023 MNF debut that featured the Jets playing host to the Bills, their in-state rival. The audience was the largest to watch a MNF game since ESPN began broadcasting the football spectacle it in 2006.
And MNF even beat Sunday Night Football, which normally is the most watched television programming of the week. The Cowboys humilated the Giants at MetLife Stadium by the score of 40-0. More than 21.8 million watched the game by flipping on the TV or viewing it on their favorite streamer.
The NFL anticipated such big audiences when it booked the TV schedules months ago. That’s why the Jets with Aaron Rodgers, their new leader, were scheduled for six nationally-televised appearances with five in primetime. Zach Wilson, last year’s quarterback, will start again. But he’s definitely not the sexy NFL TV draw.
The NFL will have to leave three of the Rodger-less Jets national games in place. The Jets play the Chiefs on Sunday Night Footbal, Oct. 1. The Jets-Chargers, set for MNF on Nov. 6, also still sticks. It’s the same for the Jets-Dolphins, which was a new Black Friday offering (Nov. 24) on Amazon Prime.
Without Aaron Rodgers as draw, NFL could move two Jets games
But the league and its broadcast partners do have some wiggle room on two other Jets national games. SNF could get out of the Jets-Raiders, which is set for Nov. 12. NBC could pick another game if it gives notice by Oct. 31. And the Dec. 28 Jets-Browns game could be moved from Thursday Night Football. But that decision requires four-weeks notice.
Hans Schroder, the NFL’s executive vice president and COO, conducted a teleconference with media, Tuesday, to chat about these topics.
“Sitting here today, we have a lot of football ahead of us before we look at any final decisions for any network and any eligible window,” Schroder told reporters.
““Every year we look at each of those starting multiple weeks out,” he said. “Each game and each window, with that focus of making sure and being laser-focused on is there an opportunity … (to) get the best game into the right window? We certainly look at that. There are a lot of variables and considerations that go into what that best game is. And so that has to work on a number of levels. . . . There is a lot of football left between now and then.”
Aaron Rodgers will have Achilles surgery soon with an anticipated recovery of a strenuous nine months. He’s two-plus months shy of turning 40. And it’s unclear whether those tuning into MNF witnessed his final game.
The Jets play the Cowboys this Sunday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. It’s not a prime-time game, but Aaron Rodgers will be missed from a game that’s certain to draw big numbers.