It’s no surprise that a game featuring the presumptive preseason Super Bowl champions and a surprisingly 1-0 team from the nation’s top media market performed well in a standalone window.
The Giants-Rams Week 2 Monday night game attracted a total average audience of 19.4 million on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN Deportes.
ESPN claims that Monday Night Football viewership is up 29 percent over the first two weeks of the season.
But it’s difficult to do a true apples-to-apples comparison. In Week 2 of the 2025 season, the NFL staged a consecutive doubleheader on Monday night. The first game, Buccaneers at Texans, started at 7:00 p.m. ET on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN Deportes. The nightcap, Chargers at Raiders, began at 10:00 p.m. ET on ESPN, ESPN Deportes, and NFL+.
The early game averaged 17.4 million viewers. The late game averaged 9.7 million viewers. The average viewership for the two games was 13.5 million.
So, yes, one game starting at the usual time on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and ESPN Deportes will outperform by a large margin a six-hour marathon with the first game on a big platform and the second game on a much smaller platform.
In future years, it won’t be an issue, because the NFL has pulled the plug on the Monday night doubleheader experiment. For this year, the fact that there were two games in Week 2 a year ago makes it very hard to credibly claim that there has been a dramatic increase in viewership through two weeks.
Rams Clips
The top three Broncos running backs are all on the injury report.
Jonah Coleman did not practice on Wednesday due to an ankle injury. Coleman scored his first NFL touchdown in last Sunday’s win over the Jaguars and the rookie ran 10 times for 39 yards in the game.
Coleman saw more playing time because J.K. Dobbins left the game with a hip injury and RJ Harvey was inactive with a hamstring injury. Both of those backs were listed as limited participants.
Wide receiver Marvin Mims (foot) was also a limited participant. He missed practice all of last week and did not play against Jacksonville.
Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua missed Week 2 with a groin injury and his outlook for this week’s game against the Broncos remains unclear.
Head coach Sean McVay said that Nacua would have missed Wednesday’s practice — the team only held a jog-through — and they’ll see what he’s able to do on Thursday. McVay said Nacua is “frustrated,” but that the team doesn’t believe this is a long-term issue and will exercise caution to ensure it doesn’t become one.
“I don’t think so. I think it’s more along the lines of just seeing how that responds,” McVay said, via Nate Atkins of TheAthletic.com. “When you’re a skill player and you’re really trying to hit high-speed yards and really open up, then some of the things can be like pre-hernia is what he’s feeling. You err on the side of caution. Usually, time is the best thing that allows that thing to heal and then when you get to a certain point, I think you feel pretty good moving forward.”
If that doesn’t happen by Sunday, Davante Adams will remain the top wide receiving option for the Rams.
The Rams announced a pair of roster moves on Wednesday afternoon.
They signed safety Maximus Pulley off of the Eagles’ practice squad and added him to the active roster. Running back Ronnie Rivers was placed on injured reserve in a corresponding move.
Pulley played six special teams snaps as a temporary elevation in Philadelphia’s Week 2 win over the Titans. He entered the league as an undrafted free agent this offseason.
Rivers had five carries for 19 yards and one catch for five yards in the first two Rams games of the season, but suffered a calf injury in Monday night’s win over the Giants. He has been with the team since the 2022 season.
Rams coach Sean McVay was pleased with how defensive tackle Aaron Donald played on Monday night, in his first game back after being retired for two years.
“I can’t even think of the words to say the love and respect I have for who he is,” McVay said. “He does everything the right way. I think the cool thing is his standards — he’ll be excited about where he can improve. But pretty impressive to be off almost 1,000 days, come back and play the defensive line position, 30-plus snaps, make your impact felt tremendously, still eliciting double and triple teams because of who he is. That’s Aaron Donald for you. Never ceases to amaze me.”
McVay said it was obvious that Donald kept himself in shape during his retirement, but that Donald still has things he can improve as the season goes on.
“He still is taking great care of himself, the hard work pays off,” McVay said. “And I think the best is yet to come from him.”
McVay said he personally was pumped up seeing Donald run out of the tunnel, and that he could tell Donald’s teammates and the crowd were getting pumped up, too.
“You get goosebumps,” McVay said. “It elevated everybody, and that’s what the greats do.”
The Rams did not have an issue playing without star receiver Puka Nacua on Monday night, defeating the Giants, 28-6.
But the team would surely like to have Nacua healthy sooner rather than later, particularly as Los Angeles will face Denver on Sunday night in Week 3.
Head coach Sean McVay said on Tuesday that he was unsure of Nacua’s potential availability for the coming weekend as he deals with the psoas issue.
“I’m hopeful that he’ll play,” McVay said, via Gary Klein of the L.A. Times. “If he’s ready to go, great. If not, then we’ll continue to roll.”
Nacua missed practice on Friday and Saturday after the injury popped up during the week. He was listed as questionable for Monday night and was inactive for the contest.
“You have to redirect your whole kind of plans, and you almost have to operate where it’s like, ‘All right, if [Nacua] plays it’s a bonus, but we can’t count on him playing even though we were hopeful that there might be a chance,” McVay said. “It really just boiled down to ... when you have soft tissue injuries with guys like that, that are skill players, you’re going to err on the side of caution.”
Nacua caught five passes for 74 yards in the Rams’ season-opening loss to the 49ers.
Los Angeles’ first injury report of the week is due out on Wednesday.
The Rams didn’t have receiver Puka Nacua on Monday night. It made Davante Adams the focal point of the passing game.
And it added up to Adams catching nine passes for 175 yards and two touchdowns.
“He’s wide receiver one to me,” coach Sean McVay told reporters after the game. “He ain’t a two. He was special and it showed all night. That’s what he’s consistently done and I’m really happy for him. I thought he made some great plays, but you could see there’s a lot of trust that he and Matthew [Stafford] have. They were able to get a lot of work together this offseason, and it’s only going to continue to build. I was really happy for him. He did his thing tonight.”
And the Giants didn’t seem to do anything to adjust to Adams doing his thing.
Giants coach John Harbaugh was asked whether the Rams did anything that made it hard to cover Adams.
“They didn’t do anything special,” Harbaugh said. “He just made plays.”
Should the Giants have assigned cornerback Greg Newsome II to cover Adams wherever he goes?
“We had a lot of ideas,” Harbaugh said, “a lot of things we tried to do.”
They apparently didn’t try to double Adams, or to rotate the safeties in his direction.
It couldn’t have hurt. Yes, it would have made it easier for others to get open. And while that may have meant more opportunities for the tight ends, the Rams got very little from other receivers. Tutu Atwell caught one pass for 19 yards, and Konata Mumpfield caught one pass for 12 yards.
So, yes, maybe the things the Giants tried should have included taking Adams away. On Sunday night, the Broncos presumably will.
The first real sighting of Giants receiver Odell Beckham Jr. on Monday night happened when ESPN cameras captured him giving his former head coach, Sean McVay, a post-game hug. During the game, OBJ made even less of a cameo appearance.
Beckham was on the field for only three snaps. Out of 58 total offensive plays.
By way of comparison, Malachi Fields had 47 snaps. Malik Nabers played 43. Darnell Mooney was on the field for 42.
Even Braxton Berrios — primarily a special-teamer — had five offensive snaps.
Making the lack of involvement from Beckham more surprising is the fact that starting quarterback Jaxson Dart made an early exit with a knee injury. Beckham and backup quarterback Jameis Winston have a strong rapport, and Winston struggled in relief of Dart, completing 11 of 27 throws. Why not give Beckham and Winston a chance to connect?
The other question is whether Beckham has frustrations regarding his lack of involvement. Yes, he’s apparently happy to simply be back in the NFL after a year out of football. But, with only three snaps in a prime-time game, is he really back?
In Week 1, Beckham was on the field for 11 of 69 snaps. He has been targeted zero times, through two games.
From the Giants’ perspective, it’s fair to wonder whether a game-day roster spot is being wasted on someone who isn’t contributing to the cause. As MDS points out, the Giants have receiver Dalen Cambre on the practice squad. He was second in the NCAA in special-teams tackles as a senior, and he blocked two punts at the college level.
Yes, the Giants bringing Beckham back to Big Blue is a good story. The fans love him. But the early-season trends aren’t encouraging. At some point, they’re going to need his roster spot.
Especially if they don’t put Dart on IR and add another quarterback (other than Berrios) to serve as the backup to Winston.
The Rams didn’t have Puka Nacua for Monday night’s game against the Giants, but the wide receiver’s absence didn’t wind up holding them back.
Matthew Stafford found the groove that eluded the Rams in Week 1’s loss to the 49ers and threw for 327 yards and four touchdowns in a 28-6 win. The first of those scores came late in the first quarter when he found a wide open Davante Adams for a 31-yard score and it would not be the last time Adams found holes in the Giants defense.
Adams used a double move to shake off Giants defenders for a 64-yard catch on the next Rams possession and he added his second touchdown catch of the night in the third quarter. The night ended with eight catches for 195 yards that Stafford said the Rams really needed given who wasn’t available for the game.
“He’s an elite player,” Stafford said, via the team’s website. “He made all sorts of plays today. [He] made contested catches. He ran great routes and got open. He did it all for us, and he’s a guy that can do that. We understand that. We know it. And like I said, leaned on him big time tonight, and he came through for us.”
The Rams will be hoping to have more hands on deck in Denver next weekend, but Monday was a reminder of how much they bring to the table even when they aren’t playing with a full deck.
SoFi Stadium got a jolt of energy before Monday night’s game when Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald was the final defensive starter announced to the home crowd.
Donald said the response from that crowd “kind of amped me up a little bit” as he ran onto the field for the first time since deciding to end the retirement that started after the 2023 season. Donald did not travel to Australia for the opener and took more time to ramp himself up for his return to game action.
The result was three tackles and a tackle for loss while playing 33 of the team’s 58 defensive snaps in Monday night’s 28-6 win over the Giants. Donald said he would like to win “a little faster” when he’s blocked one-on-one and that he feels like everything will feel more natural with a little more playing time under his belt.
“The game really wasn’t as fast as I thought,” Donald said, via the team’s website. “It was more of me calming myself down, overrunning stuff or just my feet not being in the ground how they supposed to be, not trusting my eyes, little stuff like that. But playing the game, when I held out in ’17, ’18 it was the same way when I came back, it took a couple games to get going. It’s a little different. I ain’t played in two years, so I gotta watch the film, see what I did good, see what I did wrong, and just clean it up.”
The plan was for the Rams to team Donald with Myles Garrett, but Garrett’s knee injury leaves that on hold for the time being so all involved will hope that the weeks to come find Donald recovering even more of the game that made him a three-time defensive player of the year.
