Taking One for the Team

[Ergcat]

Finally off the couch! Needed the nudges and a lot of Mr. Googles help!

[cbarbee002]

Wow. Great puzzle once you found the trail head! Great work Jay!

[Eric Porter]

Finally off the couch thanks to the nudges!

Nice puzzle. I really, really should have seen the easter eggs earlier.

[edestlin]

I had found the Easter eggs originally, but I'm stuck with the themers and the nudges aren't clicking for me. I might be making this too hard. Anyone up for a nudge?

[hoover]

I needed all of those nudges.

[kulea]

got it

[Bird Lives]

The Super Bowl under/over is 47½. I don’t know about SF and KC on Sunday, but MMM on Wednesday crossed into Over territoruy.

37. Cindy Heisler
38. DCBilly
39. Jaclyn
40. rayyandroid
41. david
42. hcbirker
43. ajk
44. Eric Porter
45. rfj
46. Ergcat
47. DIS
48. cbarbee002
49. hoover
50. Mr Tex
51. andeux
52. Adam Simon Levine
53. kulea

I wish I had something more for those still on the couch in the locker room, but I’m nudged out.

[minimuggle]

Finally OTC. Thanks Jay

[Jeremy Smith]

OTC. Glad I stuck with this one. Thanks, Jay!

[Bird Lives]

Since the two-minute warning Wednesday, six more players have gotten up off the bench and are on the field. We finish with a total of 59.

54. Steve M
55. JR
56. nnnnnng
57. minimuggle
58. Jeremy Smith
59. Alvibu67

The answer is James Brown.

NFL team names, all thirty-two of them, are plural. The first step in “Taking One for the Team” was to take one (the singular form) for the team (plural). But which teams? The second word of each themer is also the first word of a phrase. The second word of that phrase is the singular form of an NFL team name. In 18 Across, for example, the pivotal word is GAS. BIO GAS goes to “gas bill,” Bill being the singular form of the Buffalo team name.

Each of those new phrases fits with a clue for another entry in the grid. “Gas bill” could have been clued as “Monthly household payment,” which happens to be the clue for 44 Across, MORTGAGE. The initial letters of those alternate entries (here, the M in MORTGAGE), taken in grid order, spell JAMES.

That is not quite the answer. Just like the themers, it has to be completed with the singular form of an NFL team — the Browns. James Brown performeed at Super Bowl XXXI in 1997 along with the Blues Brothers and ZZ Top. According to Wikipedia,

James Brown, wearing a pink satin suit, then performed his songs “I Got You (I Feel Good)” and “Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine.”

If instead you felt like being an Easter-egg-finding machine, hidden in the clues were eleven other singular NFL names. My favorite was the twofer at 15 Down, “Commander-in-Chief 70 years ago.”
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Thanks to all for solving. Enjoy the Super Bowl.

[Ergcat]

I found all the Easter eggs except 15d !! “Commander-in-Chief” ! Clever

[MikeyG]

Late to this one, but I was able to grok it nudge-free, even without looking up the teams, which I almost did! Wasn't sure to do after that, but once I remembered the Dustin Hoffman movie clue, it all came into place. Great epiphany, and I missed all those Easter eggs! Fun one!

[ChrisKochmanski]

OTC!

Really liked this one. Thanks, Jay!