The Denver Broncos played a game that was close but not exactly compelling against the Seattle Seahawks last Thursday, and they helped out the folks at Amazon Prime who broadcast Thursday Night Football with the numbers they drew in their 17-14 overtime win over Seattle.
The specific numbers in the Week 6 game between the Broncos and Seahawks averaged 15.26 million viewers, per Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, who added that the numbers compared to last year represented a nine percent increase over the 2025 pace. They were also 13 percent above the full season average to date.
The individual game comparison wasn’t quite as good, however. Last year the Game 6 contest was between the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Eagles, and last Thursday’s game from Denver was just one percentage point better.
The marquee nature of both teams played a big role here. The Seahawks are scuffling after winning the Super Bowl last year, and the Broncos are scuffling after they came within a game and three points of the Super Bowl after losing to the New England Patriots, 10-7, in the AFC Championship Game.
The Broncos also do drama well. Much of that is because of coach Sean Payton, who’s built a winner in Denver in a very short amount of time, and his interactions with quarterback Bo Nix have been great theater.
Nix is also a star in his own right here — or at least he was. The Broncos quarterback became famous for his dramatic second half-comebacks last year, but this year he’s mostly become famous for bad quarterbacking, as he had just had two of the worst games of his career back-to-back.
Nix was so bad that Amazon Prime analyst Ryan Fitzpatrick called Nix’s play “garbage” against the Seahawks, which has had a ripple effect of its own, including a profanity-laced rant from former Broncos cornerback Aqib Talib, who almost became the ex-quarterback’s Prime partner in crime.
Beyond all that, they didn’t see much of a game. Denver jumped out to a 14-3 lead in the first half after a couple of long touchdown drives, but Nix was close to unwatchable in the second half as Seattle mounted a comeback. It was a game nobody seemed to want to win, which made it a game that was a brutal watch.
Next up for Amazon is the New England Patriots visiting the Chicago Bears, and one will feature a pair of marquee quarterbacks in Caleb Williams and Drake Maye.