Today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle proved challenging for many players. This guide provides hints and the full answers, categorized by difficulty. The puzzle, published by The Athletic, is accessible via their app or online for free, separate from the main NYT Games platform.
Decoding the Groups
The puzzle is divided into four color-coded categories: yellow (easiest), green, blue, and purple (most difficult). Here’s a breakdown of the groupings:
Yellow Group: The theme revolves around popular card games. The solutions are rummy, Skip-Bo, solitaire, and Uno.
Green Group: This category features NFL team abbreviations as they appear on scoreboards. The correct answers are CAR (Carolina Panthers), DEN (Denver Broncos), JAX (Jacksonville Jaguars), and TEN (Tennessee Titans).
Blue Group: The blue group tests knowledge of Premier League nicknames, excluding the final “s”. The solutions include cottager (Fulham), magpie (Newcastle United), seagull (Brighton & Hove Albion), and toffee (Everton).
Purple Group: The most obscure category focuses on athletes who legally changed their names. The answers are Abdul-Jabbar (formerly Lew Alcindor), Ali (formerly Cassius Clay), Ochocinco (formerly Chad Johnson), and World Peace (formerly Ron Artest).
Solving Connections relies on pattern recognition and broad cultural knowledge. The purple category often requires deeper sports history awareness.
The puzzle highlights how deeply ingrained sports culture is in language and nicknames, as well as the sometimes-overlooked personal choices athletes make regarding identity.
