NFL ratings, Week 3: Everybody but Fox drops

Here’s your weekly look at NFL ratings, which shows the pure dominance of the league from a local and national level.

Fox beat CBS for the third-straight week by a score of 3.4 to 2.5. Fox NFL Sunday was even with last year, while CBS’ The NFL Today showed a slight drop from a 2.7 last season.

Fox stuck with regional games for the second-consecutive week, but had better luck this week than last. After showing year-to-year decreases in Week 2, Week 3 coverage of seven regional games hit a 13.3 rating, up nine percent from last year’s regional window. Fox showcased a wild Green Bay-Cincinnati game to much of the nation. They also had matchups featuring big market New York, Boston and Dallas.

With six markets out of the picture at 1 p.m. ET due to hosting home games on Fox (i.e. New Orleans, Cincinnati, New England, Dallas, Washington, Carolina), CBS posted just a 7.7 with three regional games -- led by Houston-Baltimore -- at 1 p.m. ET. That was down 33 percent from the network’s 11.4 in the window last year. That window had games featuring the Jets, a then-blossoming RGIII and the Redskins, as well as the Detroit Lions.

CBS not only had a solid matchup for their “Game of the Week” (Colts-49ers in 81 percent of the country) but games featuring the powerful New York and Seattle markets. Yet, they still couldn’t top last year’s game in this window. Colts-Niners, Bills-Jets and Jaguars-Seahawks hit a 14.6 rating, down two percent from the 14.9 for Texans-Broncos in 2012. Still, it was solid business in the national window, which certainly helped CBS’ Emmy telecast rise from last year.

For once, television was a little stacked against NBC’s primetime window. They still won the night, but between the Emmys, Breaking Bad, Dexter and a bunch of other stuff last night, NBC saw another drop in ratings despite what looked like a decent TV draw on paper to start the season.

Pittsburgh fell to 0-3 against Chicago on Sunday night, in a game that was only close for a brief period of time. The game drew a 13.5, easily beating the Emmys’ 12.1. That was still down from last year’s 14.3 for Patriots-Ravens.