What a game: Cardinals versus Packers Draws the highest rating of a wild card game since 1998 By Toni Fitzgerald Jan 12, 2010 Share | The NFL playoffs got off to a great start over the weekend, following a season of very strong ratings for pro football. All four wild card games rose compared to last year, led by a truly wild game between the Arizona Cardinals and Green Bay Packers that generated the highest rating for any wild card game since 1998. The teams kept trading scores throughout regulation, and the Cardinals eventually prevailed 51-45 in overtime. The game averaged a 21.8 Nielsen overnight household rating, up 10 percent over the Philadelphia Eagles-Minnesota Vikings game that aired at the same time last year. It was the highest-rated wild card game since the Packers and the San Francisco 49ers squared off 11 years ago, averaging a 24.2. Like this year's game, that one also aired on Fox. The other Sunday game, the Baltimore Ravens' surprising victory over the New England Patriots, averaged a 19.4 rating earlier in the day, CBS's best AFC wild card game in four years and up 14 percent over last year. NBC aired the other two games on Saturday, which combined for the highest-rated wild card doubleheader since 2000. The Philadelphia Eagles-Dallas Cowboys contest in primetime averaged a 19.6, up 7 percent over last year's San Diego Chargers-Indianapolis Colts game. And the afternoon contest between the New York Jets and Cincinnati Bengals earned a 16.9, 18 percent better than last year's Cardinals-Atlanta Falcons game. Certainly the strong NFL season helped goose ratings for the contests, and Fox's Cardinals-Packers game was one of the most exciting first-round playoff contests in recent memory. But it also didn't hurt that three of the four games were rematches from the previous week, adding a bit of unusual intrigue to the games. Both the Bengals and Eagles seemed to have something to prove after getting blown out on the final weekend of the regular season. Yet neither could pull it together in their playoff game, falling again to opponents who barely made the playoffs. The Cardinals were the only ones to reverse the previous week's outcome. ***

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Toni Fitzgerald is a staff writer for Media Life.	© 2012 Media Life Magazine