Coming off a riveting Sunday afternoon of playoff football and a weekend in which all but one game was close late in the contest, the NFL is still losing viewers at a rate that is bound to alarm league executives and team owners.

Ratings for the league’s divisional playoff round were down an average of 11 percent from last year. The Minnesota Miracle, featuring one of the great final plays in league history, was the weekend’s highest-rated game (21.8) in the late Sunday window. Yet even that was down 23 percent from last year’s Packers victory over the Cowboys (28.2).

The early Sunday window, in which the Jaguars upset the Steelers in a high-octane matchup at Heinz Field, did a 20.4 rating, down 7 percent over last year’s Steelers win over the Chiefs.

On Saturday, a tight Falcons/Eagles contest drew 17.4—a drop of 5 percent from last year’s Seahawks/Falcons matchup. In the late Saturday game, the Patriots 35-14 drubbing of the Titans garnered a 16.6 rating, down 9 percent from Texans/Patriots last year. The decrease occurred even though the Patriots saw a 43.5 rating locally, a jump of 3 percent over last year.

It will be difficult for the league to rebound in the two conference championship games this weekend. As Richard Deitsch at Sports Illustrated points out, Jacksonville’s presence in the AFC championship could mean diminished ratings, since it’s the conference’s smallest TV market. Last year 48 million viewers tuned into the late Sunday window for the Patriots/Steelers, two large-market cities that attract national interest. It seems unlikely this year’s game will match those numbers.

While this year’s NFC game has intrigue due to the fact that it features two of the league’s most long-suffering fan bases, it doesn’t have star power at the most important position: quarterback. Will casual fans tune in to watch Nick Foles battle Case Keenum the way they did last year when Matt Ryan took on Aaron Rodgers?

If the trend this year continues for the NFL, the answer will be no.

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