With the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears were tied near the end of last night’s , it looked for sure that the game was going into overtime. Then, even with injured quarterback Sam Bradford put on the field, the Vikings took control and won the game 20-17.

That now finds Minnesota 3-2 in the fifth week of the 2017 season. However, even with the much plugged world debut of the new Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer at halftime, for the NFL and ESPN it was not such a great result in what is clearly a season of lower ratings amid protest controversies surrounding the national anthem – even on a night when the latter was not shown on-air.

Snaring a 7.0 in metered market results, MNF was down double digits from last week’s Kansas City Chiefs win over the Washington Redskins. Down 17% in the ratings, that’s actually a regular-game season low for ESPN and matches the MM result of the second game of the doubleheader MNF opener on September 11.

That comes a day after Sunday Night Football also hit a season low.

A sliver of a silver lining can be found for the NFL and ESPN in that last night’s game was up 8% in MM ratings from the last year’s Week 5 matchup between Tampa Bay and Carolina. With the help of strong ratings from those always-well-watched Dallas Cowboys, MNF is holding steady with last year’s hard-hit season with a 5% uptick.

Either way, on a full night on the Big 4, MNF looks poised to win the night — again. We’ll update with more ratings later. As a measure, last week’s Chiefs-Redskins game ended up with 11.9 million viewers and a 4.3 rating among adults 18-49. Last night’s game peaked with an 8.3 MM rating during the 9:45-10 PM slot, exactly when The Last Jedi trailer was shown. The Force clearly is strong with that one.