What if I told you that the most watched Monday Night Football game in four years featured former Browns QBs Colt McCoy and Brandon Weeden dueling for a period of time?  No, it’s not some fictional 30 for 30 lead-in.  It’s true!

Cowboys-Redskins delivered monster ratings for Monday Night Football, pushing them not only to a season high, but multi-year highs.  An 11.4 rating and a massive 18.8 million viewers.  Via ESPN

Redskins-Cowboys is the highest-rated MNF game since the New Orleans Saints-New England Patriots telecast on Nov. 30, 2009 (12.9 household rating) and the most-viewed game since the New Orleans-Atlanta Falcons game on Dec. 27, 2010 (19,137,000 viewers). Overall, the game is now the seventh most-viewed telecast in cable history among households and the ninth most-viewed among viewers (P2+), excluding breaking news. (Note: ESPN MNF and BCS Championship college football games occupy the entire top-10 in both categories. See below.)

The Cowboys might not be America’s Team anymore, but they still bring in tons and tons of viewers, especially when they’re doing well.  Considering that there wasn’t any World Series competition, it was a close game between two of the NFL’s most storied rivals, and there was the drama with Tony Romo’s injured back, this had all the makings of scoring a huge number.  It goes down as the third most watched Monday Night Football game in ESPN history behind Saints-Patriots and Packers-Vikings in 2009.

[ESPN]