Sports

The Vikings' fourth-quarter comeback win over the Bears on Monday Night Football drew a big audience.

ESPN announced that the game reached 22.1 million viewers, an 8 percent increase over the audience for last year's Monday night opener, which was the Jets against the 49ers.

The total viewership figure includes everyone watching the main broadcast on ESPN and ABC, the ManningCast on ESPN2, the Spanish-language broadcast on ESPN Deportes and the NFL+ stream. There was no breakdown announced for how many viewers watched on each of those platforms.

ESPN also announced that its Monday Night Countdown pregame show drew 1.76 million viewers, up 39 percent from Week One last year.

The Patriots kicked off another practice week without their top cornerback.

Christian Gonzalez remained on the sidelines with a hamstring injury. Gonzalez missed practice all of last week with the same injury and did not play in the season-opening loss to the Raiders.

Head coach Mike Vrabel discussed Gonzalez's status at a press conference before the team's practice.

"He’s continuing to improve, which is positive, and working hard, but I don't think we'll see him today on the practice field," Vrabel said, via a transcript from the team. "So again, just working hard and keep improving, staying engaged, still preparing as a starter, asking questions in the meetings and all those things. So, that's where we're at today."

Edge rusher Harold Landry did play in the opener, but he missed practice Wednesday with a foot injury. Right tackle Morgan Moses (foot) and defensive lineman Keion White (illness) were also out.

Wide receiver Kayshon Boutte (shoulder), linebacker Christian Elliss (shoulder), linebacker Marte Mapu (neck), and cornerback Charles Woods (groin) were limited participants for New England.

Cowboys cornerback DaRon Bland missed practice Wednesday with a foot injury.

Bland had a stress fracture in his foot during the team's 2024 training camp and did not return until Week 12. It is not clear whether it is the same foot Bland has injured this time.

He played all 63 snaps Thursday night and made three tackles.

Safety Malik Hooker also is dealing with a foot injury, and the Cowboys list him as limited in Wednesday's practice.

The Giants were without offensive lineman Andrew Thomas (foot) and defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence (personal) at Wednesday's practice, with wide receiver Malik Nabers (back) limited.