• by Wayne Friedman , August 15, 2006

NBC's "Sunday Night Football" dropped to a 3.1 rating among adult 18-49 viewers--a 14 percent falloff from the show's debut the week before.

Still, it's only pre-season, and viewers know that they won't be seeing all their favorite football stars for the complete game. Also--and more importantly--the games don't count yet--even with ex-"Monday Night Football" on-air talent Al Michaels and John Madden at the helm. The first hour of the game came in worse than the average for the entire game--with a 2.9 rating among adult 18-49 viewers. Pre-season games are generally yawners--but this game was duller than normal--the Cincinnati Bengals beat the Washington Redskins 19-3.

For the night, "SNF" gave NBC the Sunday night victory overall, with a 2.8 rating and 9 share in viewers 18-49. CBS was next at a 2.1/6; then ABC at 2.0/6, Fox at 1.8/6, Univision at 1.1/4, and the WB at 0.6/2.