Looking for the main puzzle solutions? The daily hints, Mini Crossword keys, Wordle answers, and Strands guides live here. But today’s special guest is different. It is the Sports Edition of Connections. Published by The Athletic, which The New York Times owns, it lives in their app rather than the main NYT Games hub. You can play online for free, too. The difficulty curve is weird today. Easy for NFL fans, messy for everyone else.
The Clues
Four groups. Ranked by color, from the soft yellow landing to the hard purple brick.
Yellow: In charge.
Green: College sports division player.
Blue: Signal callers sharing a first name.
Purple: Not down.
The Answers
Yellow: Brass, leadership, management, team officials. They are all heads.
Green: An SEC athlete. Aggie, Gamecock, Sooner, Volunteer. School mascots doing the work.
Blue: QB Drews. Allar, Bledsoe,Brees, Lock. Names that sound like orders.
Purple: ____ up. Change, tune, warm, wind. Phrases waiting for the verb.
Who really wins a sports puzzle anyway? Probably the guy who watches Formula 1 while ignoring the actual ball game. Difficulty depends on your obsessions. My husband nails racing terms. My friend lives for hockey. I only care if Minnesota plays well. Still, some past categories have felt like brain damage. Serie A Clubs? WNBA MVPs? Premier League nicknames like Bees and Hammers? Those stick in the mind longer than the sports itself does.
Not every connection is a victory. Sometimes it’s just a wind-up.
The game ends when the app says it ends.
