Grid and bear it: NFL Week 14 a big loser

Someone throw NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell a life preserver — the average TV audience for games through Week 14 sank even deeper behind those through the period last season.

Amid a national outcry over players kneeling for the national anthem, and criticism over poor on-field play, the average TV audience through last Monday night dipped to 8.4 percent below last year — worse than a 7.9 percent deficit one week earlier.

The NFL is now averaging 15.3 million viewers per game this season, down from 16.7 million last season, according to Nielsen.

That means the total audience watching all NFL games is down 120 million from last season.

NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” took the biggest hit last week, losing 35 percent of its audience from last season’s Week 14 game — despite the Pittsburgh Steelers beating the Baltimore Ravens by a single point.

The various Sunday broadcasts on CBS fared almost as poorly, with eyeballs dropping off 27 percent.

NBC’s “Thursday Night Football,” which saw the Atlanta Falcons barely beat the New Orleans Saints, posted a negligible viewership loss of 0.3 percent.

Rounding out the week were singledigit declines for Fox’s late doubleheader on Sunday and for ESPN’s “Monday Night Football.”

The only game among the six televised game slots with an increased TV viewership was the Giants-Cowboys game on Fox, which saw its audience grow by 26 percent over last year, to 15.5 million viewers.