Aaron Rodgers’ injury causes ESPN to break record on Monday Night Football
New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers suffered a serious injury on Monday Night Football, but that didn’t stop ESPN from breaking their viewership record.
Week 1 of the NFL regular season closed with one of the most anticipated games of the season. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers made his New York Jets debut from MetLife stadium against Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills. The excitement for the primetime game transcended the state of New York. Everyone was ready for a showdown between two of the best quarterbacks and the best teams in the league.
No one could have predicted that the 39-year-old veteran would be forced out of the game on the fourth play with an injury that will sideline him for the rest of the season. Rodgers suffered a torn achilles tendon and in an instant the Jets’ Super Bowl hopes went plummeting.
While Rodgers and the Jets mourned his injury, ESPN cashed in with a new viewership record, largely thanks to the former Green Bay Packers quarterback. The network announced that a record 22.6 million viewers tuned into the game despite the injury to the future Hall of Famer.
The primetime matchup between the Bills and the Jets on Monday night surpassed a game that Rodgers took part in over a decade ago. The most watched Monday Night Football before this week’s edition was the Green Bay Packers vs Minnesota Vikings in 2009, when Brett Favre met his former team and his replacement Aaron Rodgers (21.8 million viewers).
An emotional match
The game surprisingly turned out to be full of drama going to overtime after a Tyler Bass field goal banged off the post and snuck through the uprights before a game winning return from Xavier Gipson to give the Jets the opening win of the season.
The defense was decisive for Robert Saleh’s team, forcing four turnovers, including three interceptions by Jordan Whitehead, who was chosen as the AFC’s Player of the Week.
The Jets will now look forward to Week 2 and the rest of the season without their QB1. The first test for the Jets with Zach Wilson as the starting quarterback will be the Dallas Cowboys who are coming off a 40-0 blowout of the New York Giants.