ESPN drew a 4.8 overnight rating for last night's Browns-Redskins matchup from 8:00-11:15pm ET, marking the net's second-best NFL preseason audience on record, behind only a 5.5 overnight for Brett Favre's debut with the Vikings in '09. The telecast last night peaked at a 5.5 rating from 8:45-9:00pm. The game drew combined 28.5 local rating in the Cleveland-Akron market (7.3 on ESPN, 21.1 on WKYC-NBC) and a 13.6 local rating in DC (7.1 on ESPN, 6.5 on WDCA-Ind.) (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor). Meanwhile, Phoenix-based KNXV-ABC drew a 12.0 local rating for Texans-Cardinals on Aug. 9, up 51% from the Cardinals' preseason opener against the Packers last season (Cardinals).
FRESH OFF THE FIELD: Former NFLer David Diehl will join Fox as a game analyst alongside play-by-play announcer Thom Brennaman this season, and Diehl said, "I wouldn't have auditioned if I didn't think I can do this." Despite having just retired after the '13 season, Diehl said he is "going to call people out if they are loafing, if people are lazy, if people are not working hard." But he said, "Am I going to sit there and degrade anybody, talk down to them? Absolutely not" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 8/19).
DA COACH TALKS: Bears WR Brandon Marshall will join Showtime's "Inside the NFL," the first active NFLer to be an analyst on the show. Asked if he approved of the decision, former Bears coach Mike Ditka wrote, "Not during the season, not if he has to leave Chicago. If he could do it by phone or remote, I wouldn’t have a problem. But I don’t think it would be comfortable for the coach to have a guy do that" (SUNTIMES.com, 8/16).
