The crossflex brought CBS its best NFL ratings of the 2018 season, highlighting another strong week for the league

Another week, another strong ratings performance from the NFL. Ho hum.

The league’s Week 7 ratings were strong nearly across the board, starting with CBS. The doubleheader, powered by a crossflex and a flex out of Sunday Night Football in the late window, drew an overall rating of 12.0, which was up 14% overall from 2017. The early window drew a 9.5 and the late window drew a 14.4, up 12% and 14% overall.

CBS Scores Its Best Ratings of NFL Seasonhttps://t.co/PEYkmHtP9g pic.twitter.com/rMXSUEweZi

— CBS Sports PR (@CBSSportsGang) October 22, 2018

The early window was highlighted by Patriots-Bears, and the late window was featured a pair of flexed games, featuring the Cowboys-Redskins crossflex and the Rams-49ers Sunday Night Football flex. For one, I am completely shocked that close games (in the forms of New England-Chicago and Dallas-Washington) sucked viewers in and kept them watching the games.

Overall, the four windows drew a 45.3 gross overnight (which is a metric that’s been gaining in popularity this season, much to my dismay), up 4% from last year. Fox was also up for its single window of games, featuring a tight Panthers-Eagles matchup in most of the country (though overall numbers aren’t available yet).

For traditional four Sunday windows in Week 7, NFL had a 45.3 gross overnight rating, up 4% from last year. Only NBC down in Week 7 with blowout on "SNF." CBS also gets another 4.4 ratings points for Titans-Chargers in Sunday morning window from London (not included in 45.3)

— Austin Karp (@AustinKarp) October 22, 2018

NBC’s Sunday Night Football window was also down for the Chiefs’ 35 point blowout win over the Bengals, a game that was highlighted by Al Michaels frantically trying to do some quick math on the over/under at the end of the game. The overnight peaked at a 12.6 before halftime, which isn’t a good sign given that Week 7 of SNF in 2017 drew a final rating of 11.0.

The overnight for Bengals-Chiefs on NBC’s SNF peaked at 12.6/21 as Kansas City took 24-7 lead late in 2nd quarter (9:30-9:45pm ET)

— NBC Sports PR (@NBCSportsPR) October 22, 2018

On the other end of the spectrum, Thursday Night Football drew a horrendous, record-low primetime overnight for Fox this week, but still topped the ALCS and the NBA’s Opening Week games on Turner’s networks.