The Sunday edition of NYT Connections Sports Edition arrives with puzzle #636, testing your knowledge of soccer legends, NFL team nicknames, and golf history all at once. Today's grid is a multilingual minefield that rewards deep sports trivia across three different sports.
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 #636:
PELÉ | PACK | A-TEAM | G-MEN
STARTERS | NIBLICK | FIRST STRING | MARTA
RONALDINHO | MASHIE | BOLTS | CLEEK
VIKES | REGULARS | BRASSIE | KAKÁ
A seemingly random collection that somehow connects into four perfect categories.
Strategic Hints (No Spoilers Yet)
Yellow Category Nudge: These are the players you put on the field first, not the benchwarmers.
Green Category Clue: Think of how fans shorten their favorite NFL franchises into punchy, one-word chants.
Blue Category Hint: These four names dominated the beautiful game across different eras, and one of them is the greatest female player in history.
Purple Category Teaser: Before titanium and graphite took over, these were the tools of the trade on the links.
The Full Solutions
Last chance to solve independently: answers below
---
---
---
---
---
Yellow (A Team's Best Players): A-TEAM, FIRST STRING, REGULARS, STARTERS
These four terms all describe the top-tier lineup in any sport. Whether it's the opening tip-off, kickoff, or first shift, these are the guys and gals who get the nod when the game is on the line.
Green (Informal Nicknames for NFL Teams): BOLTS, G-MEN, PACK, VIKES
Fans love a good shorthand, and these four NFL nicknames deliver. BOLTS (Chargers), G-MEN (Giants), PACK (Packers), and VIKES (Vikings) are the shortened handles you'll hear in sports bars and group chats from September through February.
Blue (Brazilian Soccer Greats): KAKÁ, MARTA, PELÉ, RONALDINHO
Four legends of Brazilian futebol, spanning generations. Pelé is the GOAT of GOATs, Ronaldinho brought flair to the modern game, Kaká won the Ballon d'Or in 2007, and Marta stands alone as the greatest female footballer ever to step on a pitch.
Purple (Old Terms for Golf Clubs): BRASSIE, CLEEK, MASHIE, NIBLICK
These archaic club names date back to the pre-steel era of golf. The brassie was a 2-wood, the cleek a long iron, the mashie a 5-iron, and the niblick a wedge—terms that would sound foreign to modern golfers but were standard equipment for Bobby Jones and his peers.
The Verdict
Puzzle #636 registers as moderate-to-tricky with a serious history pop quiz baked in. Yellow falls quickly for anyone who's ever watched a pregame roster announcement, while green rewards the casual NFL fan who knows how to shorten a team name.
Blue separates the soccer literate from the casuals—you need to know that Kaká and Marta are Brazilian, not just names that sound vaguely sporty. Purple is the streak-ender, requiring the kind of golf history knowledge that most modern players don't carry in their bag.
The real trap? A-TEAM and FIRST STRING look like they could be football-adjacent categories, and PACK could easily be mistaken for a general sports term rather than a specific NFL nickname. Meanwhile, the golf club names (BRASSIE, CLEEK, MASHIE, NIBLICK) sound so obscure they might get dismissed as nonsense—don't let the archaic vocabulary fool you into skipping them.
Reset and Repeat
Tomorrow's puzzle drops at midnight in your timezone. Until then, reflect on today's performance: Did you nail the Brazilian soccer legends or get lost in the old golf terminology?
The beauty lies not in perfection but in training your brain to spot these hidden sports connections.
For now, puzzle #636 is solved. See you at midnight for round #637.
