If you’ve been grinding through the NYT Connections Sports Edition puzzle from February 23, you’ve probably experienced that unique blend of frustration and amusement that only word games can deliver. Today’s puzzle isn’t just another casual Sunday brain teaser. It’s the kind of challenge that makes you question whether the puzzle creators were having a little too much fun in the office.
The real villain here? That purple category. We’re talking about NFL teams where someone decided to swap out the first letter like they’re playing some twisted game of Mad Libs. It’s the kind of wordplay that shouldn’t be this funny, yet somehow is.
The Layers of Today’s Puzzle
Let’s break down what you’re actually dealing with here. The puzzle has four distinct groupings, each with their own vibe. Starting with the yellow category, which honestly feels like a gift after you solve the rest of this thing.
The yellow group is all about heckling sounds. We’re talking the classics: boo, hiss, hoot, and jeer. You know, the sounds people make when they’re deeply unhappy about something. If you’ve never heard these in a stadium, you might be going to the wrong sporting events.
Then there’s the blue category, which dips into nostalgia territory with characters from Space Jam. Bugs, Jordan, Lola, and Tweety. That movie still holds up better than it has any right to, honestly. The puzzle designers clearly have a soft spot for Michael Jordan’s fever dream of a basketball crossover.
Florida Teams and the Letter Swap Nonsense
The green category is straightforward if you follow college football. Florida college teams: Bulls, Gators, Owls, and Seminoles. Nothing wild here. Just pure geographical specificity.
But then we hit the purple category, and everything gets bonkers in the best way possible. The puzzle description tells you upfront what’s happening: NFL teams with their first letter changed. The answers are bolts (formerly Colts), crowns (formerly Browns), hackers (formerly Packers), and paints (formerly Saints).
Think about this for a second. Someone sat down and decided that “Packers” minus the “P” plus an “H” equals “Hackers.” Was it silly? Absolutely. Did it make you groan audibly when you figured it out? Probably. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it?
Why These Puzzles Actually Matter
The fact that Connections: Sports Edition exists at all is interesting from a technology standpoint. The Athletic, which is owned by the New York Times, created this specialized version specifically for sports enthusiasts. It’s not just a reskin of the regular Connections game. It’s a deliberate strategy to build community around specific interests.
You can play it free online, or if you’re already subscribed to The Athletic, it’s just sitting there waiting for you in their app. The puzzle doesn’t live in the NYT Games app where the regular version hangs out. It’s a separate beast entirely, which means The Athletic is basically saying “Hey, if you care about sports and words, we’ve built something specifically for you.”
What’s particularly clever is how accessible these puzzles have become. A few years ago, you would’ve needed a newspaper subscription and actual puzzle-solving skills to engage with this kind of content regularly. Now it’s integrated into apps you probably already have, tucked into your daily routine alongside Wordle and the Mini Crossword.
The Real Question
Here’s what gets me though: as puzzle design gets more sophisticated and more games demand our attention, where’s the line between entertaining brain exercise and pure time sink? The purple category today is objectively silly. A Hacker is not a Packer with a different first letter. The joke only works if you’re familiar enough with NFL teams to recognize them in the first place.
Maybe that’s exactly why the puzzle works. It’s not for everyone. It’s specifically for people who know their sports, who appreciate wordplay, and who can laugh at a pun stretched to its absolute limits. That’s not a bug in the puzzle design. That’s a feature.
The next time you’re staring at a group of four seemingly unrelated words, just remember: sometimes the answer involves NFL teams pretending to be completely different things.
