The New York Times ’ Sports Edition of its daily Connections puzzle (#404) tested players today with a mix of Olympic sports, football games, Joe Flacco trivia, and a letter-based challenge. For those stuck, here’s a breakdown of the solutions.
Puzzle Overview
This edition, published by The Athletic (a New York Times subsidiary), appears in The Athletic ‘s app and online for free, but not in the main NYT Games app. The puzzle groups words into four categories, requiring pattern recognition and sports knowledge.
Hints & Answers
The puzzle’s difficulty varies between color-coded groups. Here’s how they broke down:
- Yellow (Easiest): The theme is summer Olympic sports. The answers are sailing, soccer, sport climbing, and swimming.
- Green: The theme centers around football video games. The correct words are Backyard Football, Madden, NFL Blitz, and Tecmo Bowl.
- Blue: This group focuses on associations with quarterback Joe Flacco. The solution set includes Delaware (Flacco’s college), elite (a common descriptor of his play), Ravens (his longtime team), and Super Bowl MVP (his 2013 achievement).
- Purple (Hardest): The trick here lies in a double letter: two “i”s in a row. The solutions are Embiid (Joel Embiid, NBA player), Hawaii (often stylized with double “i”s), skiing, and Wii Sports (the Nintendo game).
Why These Puzzles Matter
The NYT Connections series has grown rapidly in popularity as a daily brain teaser. The Sports Edition, in particular, tests a niche knowledge base, encouraging engagement among sports fans. Solving these puzzles provides a small mental challenge, and the satisfaction of cracking the categories can be surprisingly addictive.
The inclusion of a purple category based on a simple letter pattern highlights how these puzzles sometimes prioritize cleverness over deep knowledge. This makes them accessible to a wider audience while still rewarding those with specific expertise.
