The Sunday edition of NYT Connections Sports Edition arrives with puzzle #622, and it's a borderline diabolical mix of football route trees, tennis royalty, NBA giants, and scandal-adjacent wordplay. French Open final weekend makes the timing particularly sharp.
What Makes Connections Sports Edition Tick
For newcomers, NYT Connections Sports Edition presents 16 sports-themed words that must be sorted into four thematic groups of four. The twist?
You're limited to four mistakes, and the color-coded difficulty system (yellow being easiest, purple being trickiest) means surface-level connections often mislead.
Connections Sports Edition brings the same addictive puzzle format to the world of athletics, featuring athletes, teams, sports terminology, and legendary moments. The game's genius lies in its red herrings, words that could fit multiple sports categories but belong in only one.
Today's Grid at a Glance
Here are the 16 words staring back at you in puzzle #622:
SPY | TAIL | FADE | COURIER
WILT | DEFLATE | LAVER | DRAG
CURL | BILL | BORG | BOUNTY
HAKEEM | NADAL | OUT | KAREEM
A seemingly random collection that somehow connects into four perfect categories.
Strategic Hints (No Spoilers Yet)
Yellow Category Nudge: Think about what a receiver does after the snap. These are specific paths they run.
Green Category Clue: These are first names of men who dominated the paint. One of them famously scored 100 points in a single game.
Blue Category Hint: It's Roland Garros season. These four men have lifted the Coupe des Mousquetaires, and you probably recognize a couple of Swedes and Americans in the mix.
Purple Category Teaser: The suffix is the same for all four. Think scandal, controversy, and one very famous deflated football.
The Full Solutions
Last chance to solve independently: answers below
---
---
---
---
---
Yellow (Football Receiving Routes): CURL, DRAG, FADE, OUT
These are four pass routes from the standard NFL route tree. A curl stops and turns back toward the quarterback, a drag runs across the field, a fade heads toward the sideline in the end zone, and an out breaks sharply toward the sideline.
Green (First Names of Hall of Fame Centers): BILL, HAKEEM, KAREEM, WILT
Bill Russell, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Wilt Chamberlain, four of the most dominant centers in NBA history, all Hall of Famers, all identified here by first name only. Wilt's 100-point game and Kareem's skyhook are the dead giveaways.
Blue (French Open Men's Singles Winners): BORG, COURIER, LAVER, NADAL
Bjorn Borg won six French Open titles, Jim Courier won two, Rod Laver won two (including the 1969 Grand Slam), and Rafael Nadal is practically synonymous with the clay court. Playing this puzzle during the 2026 French Open? That's a hint in itself.
Purple (___ Gate): BOUNTY, DEFLATE, SPY, TAIL
Every answer completes a "-gate" sports scandal: Bountygate (Saints' bounty program), Deflategate (Patriots' deflated footballs), Spygate (Patriots' videotaping scandal), and Tailgate (the pre-game party tradition). The first three are NFL scandals; Tailgate is the outlier that makes this category tricky.
The Verdict
Puzzle #622 registers as moderate difficulty with a sting in the tail. Yellow falls quickly for anyone who knows football route terminology, while green requires familiarity with NBA legends.
Blue separates the true tennis buffs from casual fans, you need to know that Courier and Laver won at Roland Garros, not just Nadal and Borg. Purple, predictably, is the streak-ender, requiring solvers to recognize the "-gate" suffix while dodging the trap that Tailgate is the only non-scandal entry.
The real trap is the word SPY, which looks like it belongs in a spy-themed category with TAIL, but actually slots into the "-gate" scandal pattern. Meanwhile, FADE could trick basketball fans into thinking of a basketball fadeaway, but it's a football route. And COURIER looks like a generic noun until you realize Jim Courier won two French Opens.
Reset and Repeat
Tomorrow's puzzle drops at midnight in your timezone. Until then, reflect on today's performance: did you run the right routes, recognize the NBA greats, or get burned by the French Open history lesson?
The beauty lies not in perfection but in training your brain to spot these hidden sports connections.
For now, puzzle #622 is solved. See you at midnight for round #623.
