"Team-Building Exercise" -- Sept. 20, 2024

[tommy]

Busy weekend for me so all I had time to do was solve the grid and see if anything immediately came to mind. Saw maybe some cryptic clues in the themers as someone else mentioned but NFL team names do not live at the top of my mind. Oh well, I had a great weekend regardless. Hope you all did too.

[ky-mike]

"Change one letter in each word of a theme answer" - Shouldn't that read "Change one letter in a word in each theme answer"? Seems like "a" and "each" got switched.

[Bobj]

But he probably just hoped some unfortunate with a pen would fill in PITA.

i am sure that the referees think many players are PITAs.

[BarbaraK]

It looks like WSJ has Matt writing metas to match the news. Front page of today’s paper:

NFL Makes Historic Debut in Brazil—Cheers, Confusion Ensue
Fans yell at wrong times, merrily curse refs in Portuguese and wonder why men dressed like astronauts keep huddling.

[steph]

I started backwards with the clue of 'Team Building Exercises'. I was looking for exercises, then building clues and finally focused on the word team!

[DBMiller]

Ran it back... Hmmm, maybe N or T
Center of "HikingTheBall" = T
Leading Sacker = S
FacePaint = P

When NTSP and TTSP didn't make much sense, Reread the title, and Hiking/Viking came to mind and the rest came easily.

[whimsy]

Well, I received a couple of pushes from Big Brother last night and was able to come up with the intended answer, but frankly, it was a bit disappointing. I mean, this puzzle has so much more potential than that, am I not right fellow Overthinkers!?

First off, for consistency's sake, all the "needs-to-be-changed-to" letters have to come from the last word of each themer, giving us BUC, BILL, PACKER, and SAINT. But since UIPS spells even less of a word then MIPS, we need another step.

The center entry SWEAT has my vote for being involved in the solve; it gives much needed support to the (IMO) otherwise unnecessary inclusion of "Exercise" in the title. Its clue speaks of metaphors, and of course, the first metaphorical expression anyone (well, perhaps just myself and @benchen71) would think of would be: By the sweat of your brow you shall eat your bread. Light bulb!! Brow! Add an N and you've got Brown! Definitely a football guy to add to our collection.

However UINPS really doesn't spell anything, so we forge onward.

That center entry is special because not only does it provide us with a team member but it prompts us to continue to look for metaphorical expressions, and let's face it, those original four themers are each just begging to be translated into one.
And so we get to use the clues next:

PASS THE BUCK -- implies letting go of something, giving it to someone else, therefore -- "Time to give up" = LENT = L

FIT THE BILL (with FOOT THE BILL running a close second) -- implies meeting expectations in full, therefore -- "In total harmony = AS/ONE = A

LEAD THE PACK -- OK, I made a boo-boo here. Because I'd been monkeying with the possibilities of clue initials, entry initials etc. I got confused and used the clue instead of returning to the grid for its resulting entry,; just a slight glitch, minor nit (what do you mean there are no nits in puzzles!?) So, where was I? LEAD THE PACK implies being the front runner, closest to the finish line, therefore -- "Reach quickly" = R

PATIENCE OF A SAINT (which you are if you've read this far) -- implies... Well... I'm pretty sure that those saints often secretly grit their teeth and think to themselves -- "This is really getting old..." = GRRR = G

You can see where this is headed, right?
But to get there we have to take aim at that bullseye in the middle again: BY THE SWEAT OF YOUR BROW YOU SHALL EAT YOUR BREAD. Ta-dah -- "Greek bread" = EUROS = E

There you have it --
LARGE (writ large)
And come to think of it, last I knew, some NFL players could be thought of as being on the large side.

Ah, if this were only the answer, I coulda been a contender --

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is MVPS. Change one letter in each word of a theme answer to get a member of an NFL team: RAN/RAM, HIKING/ VIKING, SACKER/PACKER, PAINT/SAINT. The new letters spell the contest answer.

A relatively straightforward contest this week, compared to some of more devious recent ones. (Not straightforward to construct -- coming up with four symmetrical football-related theme entries was a nice feat.) We had 1,113 entries, with a robust 92% correct. Incorrect entries were all over the map -- ALL PROS (3), TACKLERS (3) plus two each for QUARTERBACKS, TITANS, SUBS, CAPTAINS, and KICKERS, as well as a scattering of others.

Congrats to this week's winner: Joe Speyer of Washington, DC!

[avian]

I finished the crossword on Thursday and then worked on the meta. Forgot about it until Sunday afternoon but not into football so didn't even see that by changing a letter in each of the theme answers I would get a team name.

[Red Inker]

I spent a while thinking the "building" part of "team-building exercise" was important... Right off the bat, you've got "KOFI" in the top of the fill, which certainly calls to mind "SOFI Stadium"... Both the Rams and the Chargers play in that "building". Naturally, I figured there must be references to other stadiums scattered about... Where is "USBANK"? Where is "NRG"? Where is "LAMBEAU" and "ATANDT"? "CAESAR"? I went down the rabbit hole with that for too long.

I noticed "IKING" and "ACKER" early on, but for some reason the Saints didn't occur to me when staring at FACEPAINT. Once they did, it was an easy finish.

[Cindy N]

I think @whimsy 's rabbit hole was much deeper than mine. I found five teams - BALL/BILL and also saw RAM/RAN even though the letter change was at the end. Strange that no other themer had two teams. But I listed them all in a column, with another column showing the orignal/changed letter

The title Team BUILDING Exercise had me listing the stadiums. Rams play in SoFi Stadium. 5A KOFI. Check! S/K for letter switch.
Vikings US Bank TANKS OK, so I change a letter and add a letter. OK
Packers Lambeau Field
Saints Caesars Superdome

Not a chance on the last two. Well, Lambeau is also known as the Frozen Tundra and ULNAR/TUNDRA share 4 letters, right? I threw in the towel at the Superdome. No matter what the first name is, it's Superdome and there isn't anything in that grid that I could stretch/mash/mold/scramble - not even TBONE and ASONE.

That left "exercise" and with 37A being SWEAT, let's look at the themers. RAN, yes running is exercise. HIKING. Yep that's exercise, too. SACKING. Sacking? Am I bagging groceries? What exercise would that be? And there's no way face painting is an exercise, making this an exercise in futility.

After finding out that both "building" and "exercise" were unnecessary, and that there were only 4 teams. Oh. Now the comments about people having a quibble with one of the clues had me keep RAN/RAM and toss BALL/BILL.

At least I made it out of the hole in time! Thank you Zoom!

[Streroto]

It turns out if you look for 2 word clues whose first letters create a football position abbreviation you get, in perfect clue order, TAMMATE and I dug nearly to China trying to make TEAMMATES work...

[The XWord Rabbit]

Just the thought of another football-related puzzle set some of you Muggles grumbling, but it made your Rabbit happy -- and that’s worth something, isn’t it?

One word in each of the four anchor across entries became a member of an NFL team with a single-letter change: RAN to RAM, HIKING to VIKING, SACKER to PACKER and PAINT to SAINT. The new letters, in order, spelled out the answer: MVPs.

Your Rabbit greatly enjoyed reading about the various stadiums a number of you Muggles visited in the solving process, but no nominations there since it failed the “uniqueness of method” test.

In the end it was a landslide for whimsy (Post #247). Another testament to the painful length some Muggles will go -- and are willing to share – in a meta odyssey. (Not as long as Homer’s Odyssey, perhaps, but close.) Bravo, whimsy!

Had the answer been different and Mr. Gaffney required a “C” for the solution, your Rabbit would have loved to have seen “THIEF IN THE NIGHT” across the center of the puzzle, but alas, it was not meant to be.

Most of you are aware that the Rabbit (in his previous life) was a writer and editor for a major metropolitan greeting card company. Yesterday being the fall equinox, he thought he would end this week’s post with a souvenir of his career. In 35 years this is the only card which he recalls was released with an editorial error. (It was caught and reprinted before reaching the stores, fortunately.) Spot the mistake and guess the inside sentiment. Until next week, then.

[scrabbler]

After getting nowhere fast, I had a dream Thursday night that I figured out the answer was MVPS, but it was dream logic and I couldn't figure out why it should be right (other than it completes the thought about some NFL players, which...wasn't really enough). On Friday I was texting with my dad, and he told me he thought the answer should be MVP, but he didn't really know why either. His logic was that the OMG/RFK clue with the plus the "NFL" in the prompt implied another three-letter abbreviation. It made sense as a pointer to the right answer, but wasn't quite enough. It was much later that I vaguely thought there might be a team called the Green Bay Packers, and I googled NFL team names. From there it was straightforward. It's not that I'm fully ignorant. I have some idea of the rules of football. I just don't follow it and so the team names didn't leap out at me.

Even though it was easy for some, I am proud of coming up with the right answer for the right reason, as it is one of the harder ones I've solved (for me). And I've solved some toughies, like Factored Out and Flight of Fancy. Those were not easy at all, but a bit more in my knowledge base.

[woozy]

How the hell did I find this easier than the sports fans did... oh, right. Cause I didn't know enough to be distracted.

(That BILL is quite the distraction)

[whimsy]

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--- Bravo, whimsy! ---

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How exciting to log on this AM and catch this news -- Thanks, @The XWord Rabbit!!

Drafting my speech now --
"I'd like to thank Matt Gaffney for making all this possible, and I'd like to think Flopsy, and I'd like to thank Mopsy, and I'd like...."

[ZooAnimalsOnWheels]

In 35 years this is the only card which he recalls was released with an editorial error. (It was caught and reprinted before reaching the stores, fortunately.) Spot the mistake and guess the inside sentiment.

Well, we're missing an 'n' in 'autumn'. And I'm going to assume the sentiment inside was one of:
a) Garfield reciting the Roy Batty monologue from Blade Runner
b) "Happy 25th birthday from your doctor's office!"
c) Garfield saying "So I didn't LEAF you any cake.... I ate all the whole cake myself."

[The XWord Rabbit]

To those of you playing, "Guess the inside of the greeting card."