Peyton Manning, America’s quarterback? Sunday’s rating speaks for itself.

From NBC:

Sunday’s Steelers-Broncos game on NBC was the highest-rated Sunday Night Football game ever and tied the 2010 NFL Kickoff opener as the highest-rated regular-season NFL game ever on NBC. Additionally, the game earned NBC’s highest-ever regular-season primetime rating in the advertiser-coveted Adult 18-49 demographic, according to official national data released today by The Nielsen Company.

Sunday night’s game on NBC, in which the Broncos defeated the Steelers, 31-19, in Peyton Manning’s first game as quarterback of the Broncos, drew a 16.5 national household rating and a 26 share, the highest-rated Sunday Night Football game ever, topping the 15.7/25 for last year’s Cowboys-Giants Week 17 finale by five percent. Additionally, the 16.5/26 rating ties the 2010 NFL Kickoff opener (Vikings-Saints) as the highest-rated NFL primetime regular-season game ever on NBC.

The Steelers-Broncos game was seen by 27.57 million viewers, less than one percent below the most-watched NFL regular-season primetime game ever on NBC (27.62 million for Cowboys-Giants Week 17 game last year that determined the NFC East title).

Also, the 44.2/67 rating in Denver is best for that market for any regular-season NFL game since 9/22/03 (44.5/61 for Oakland-Denver on ABC).

That means 2/3s of the TVs in Denver were tuned into the game. Makes me wonder what the other 1/3 were watching.