The NFL continues to prove that no scandal, however serious or silly, gets in between fans and their televisions on game day. If it was true in the regular season, it’s true in spades during the playoffs.

Sunday afternoon’s AFC Championship Game, the 17th all-time meeting between all-time greats Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, earned a big-time 29.3 rating/51 share, the highest-rated AFC Championship contest in 30 years, according to CBS. That game’s whopping 53.3 million viewers is the second most-watched AFC Championship in 39 years.

In all likelihood the last battle between the two greatest quarterbacks of this generation, the game was clearly destined for huge ratings. It easily out-rated last year’s Patriots/Colts laugher.

This year, it was the NFC Championship that was the laugher. The Panthers 49-15 trouncing of the Cardinals earned a 26.8/40, with the early rating number indicating a slight decrease from last year’s Packers/Seahawks classic. Some 45.7 million viewers watched the NFC game, down from the close to 50 million viewers last year, which benefitted from a huge 60.5 million peak when Seattle sent the game into overtime after mounting a furious second-half comeback.

Overall, the conference championship’s two-game average of 49.7 million is up 8% over last year.

The four divisional round games two weeks ago posted another modest decrease, from an average of 37.8 million viewers to 36.2 million, but that total was still ahead of the 34.3 million viewers averaged in 2014. The biggest ratings highlight was Pittsburgh/Denver, which averaged 40.3 million viewers, making it the second-largest viewer average for a Sunday AFC divisional round game in 29 years, behind only the Jets surprise victory over the Patriots in 2011 (43.5 million).

Sunday’s Seattle/Carolina matchup earned 36.7 million viewers, while the Saturday night Green Bay/Arizona overtime thriller garnered 33.7 million. New England’s careful deconstruction of Kansas City Sunday afternoon was the least-watched of the four games, averaging 31.5 million.

Wild card weekend overnight ratings were up 11% with a 20.4 compared to last year’s 18.3. Seattle vs. Minnesota earned a 22.5 rating with 35.3 million viewers, up 25% from last year’s Cincinnati/Indianapolis contest in the same viewing window. The frigid ballgame, lost by Minnesota on a missed kick in the closing seconds, was the highest rated early Sunday wild card game in 22 years.

Green Bay/Washington was the only wild card weekend matchup that earned lower year-over-year ratings. The 23.6 number was lower than last year’s Cowboys/Lions nailbiter, which earned a 25.0. Kansas City’s blowout of Houston in the opening game of the playoffs earned a 16.2 overnight rating with 25.2 million viewers, a sizeable increase of 24% over last year’s Arizona/Carolina meeting. The fact that the game aired on ABC in addition to ESPN was a likely reason for the boost. The Pittsburgh/Cincinnati knockout fight averaged 31.2 million viewers, the largest audience for an AFC wild card game in four years.

So now it’s on to Santa Clara for Super Bowl 50. Last year’s classic between the Patriots and Seahawks was the most-watched television program in U.S. history, with 114.4 million viewers. It earned a 47.5 rating, the highest in 29 years, and a 71 share. Those are gargantuan numbers. But with Peyton Manning taking on a dominant Panthers team in what could be his final NFL game, do you want to bet against the NFL topping it?

[Image courtesy of Scott Clarke/ESPN Images]

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