The 49ers took on the Cowboys in an epic primetime Week 8 showdown on NBC’s Sunday Night Football.

Who won the game? The 49ers did. What was the final score? I do know not because I didn’t watch it. I spent my evening binging Three’s Company on Pluto TV. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I purposely didn’t watch the game; I didn’t avoid it out of spite. I just didn’t feel like it, which has been an ongoing problem for me (if you want to call it a problem). I just don’t have the appetite to tune into or stream every NFL game anymore. I spent the afternoon watching the Browns upset the Ravens on my Paramount+ streaming service. After a quick workout at the gym, I switched over to Fox for its 4 p.m. game between the Bills and Seahawks before immediately deciding that it would be better to go back to the CBS streaming service to watch the Chiefs slog through their game against the hated Raiders on the way to a seventh-straight victory.

After the 4 p.m. slate of games, I felt that my NFL day was over.

As for Monday Night Football?

I try to tune in when it’s on ABC, but I, like many folks, don’t have ESPN+, so that may have contributed to the World Wide Leader’s streaming channel only drawing 1.8 million viewers for its Chargers/Cardinals clash in Week 7. According to Pro Football Talk, it was the least-watched NFL game since 2008. OK, it was on ESPN+, and it was a staggered doubleheader going up against the Ravens/Buccaneers matchup that was airing on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2. That game drew over 16 million viewers which is more than awesome for MNF, especially since it’s no longer the NFL’s top-tier primetime package (that would be SNF on NBC). While that game was watched by many folks, my friend and I only tuned in for a quarter or so. We usually spend our Monday nights sitting around his house after our weekly hike/walk and shooting the breeze about life (work, relationships, politics, the most recent Steelers game, etc.), and one of us often has to remind the other to turn on the MNF game.

As for the weekly Thursday Night Game that streams on Amazon Prime? Let me know when it’s the Steelers’ turn. I’ll tune into a local affiliate to watch that particular game, but I have yet to be enticed to subscribe to Prime to watch any of the others. Who played on TNF in Week 8? I don’t know. I don’t care.

There’s just too much football. It doesn’t feel like the treat that it once did. I guess that’s because it never goes away. I’ve talked about this before, but it’s worth repeating since the issue hasn’t changed for me. I just don’t care about football as much as I used to. Actually, I do. It’s just that I don’t care about football more than I used to, which I think the NFL was banking on when it decided it would try and take over my entire viewing and news cycle life.

Hardcore folks watch every contest, as evidenced by the fansite game threads and the activity on Twitter (currently known as X). I thought I was hardcore, but I guess I’m not as hardcore as I thought. Am I an outlier for the NFL or am I the start of a growing trend of football fans who are becoming desensitized by the oversaturation of the sport on television?

We shall see.

I’ll leave you with this note: It’s a good thing my Steelers will be taking on the Chiefs in a matchup that will stream on Netflix on Christmas Day. I do have Netflix, but if Pittsburgh wasn’t playing, I likely would have tuned into Pluto TV to watch the late, great Suzanne Somers play Chrissy (Christmas) Snow in an old episode of Three’s Company.