Explanation: Per 11-A, we need to find out the ways we can score in the NFL and see what their values are worth! The oblong grid accommodates rows like VESTIGE/CANBERRA and BIKEPATH/TRADING. You'll need the clues here: a glance down the acrosses sees the beginning of the four ways a point is often scored in football (omitting the two-point conversion!): VESTIGE/CANBERRA (Touch, Down); TRIP/MEDAL (Field, Goal), BIKEPATH/TRADING (Safe, Ty), ODD/NAME (Extra, Point). Those four plays are, respectively, worth 6, 3, 2, and 1 points. The correspondingly numbered letters in the entries spell out GRIDIRON, the apropos answer to the meta. My favorite grid remains the crossword type, even so!
I literally clued NFL first as "Gridiron org.," and I was like, "Wait, that's the meta," hahaha.
Tyrpmom 4s · 2024-11-10T16:51:16.809Z
I liked it!
KayW 🤓7:53 · 2024-11-10T21:38:05.827Z
OMG I got a sportsball meta! LOL it took me long enough but FINALLY that clue at 11-across leapt up and bit me on the nose. A very clever metanism and a fantastic AHA moment. Actually TWO fantastic AHA moments. Thanks,Mikey!
Three cheers for sportsball!! You did it! Love your enthusiasm and positivity! May both teams win lol
whimsy 🤓10:35 · 2024-11-11T13:52:39.529Z
Gah! I did not see those beginning words of the eight clues involved -- although I recognized some of them were a bit unusually worded. And I knew points were involved but I was thinking we'd be going to a crossword factory instead of a football game. What's a crossword factory? -- well, maybe the place where they make those little wooden scrabble tiles that have tiny numbers in the corners that show their worth! Can you spell BUNNY? --It's worth 10 points!
Oooooh, awesome. Never would have gotten it without the nudge, but very fun to work through it from there. Thanks Mikey!
MatthewL 🤓6:28 · 2024-11-11T21:44:34.972Z
Needed the nudges, and an extra hint, but finally got there. Definitely a Level 4 (at least to me). Thanks for the puzzle, Mikey!
hoover 7s · 2024-11-11T22:38:59.395Z
Ohhhhhhh! After the mostly mysterious nudges, I saw TOUCH DOWN and FIELD GOAL and EXTRA POINT, but somehow missed SAFE TY and got distracted by 24A clue "overtime" and 25A clue "throw."
Went from a Bear to a Commander. Got it after the math nudge for 11-Across. Hats off to anyone who got there before that. Great puzzle!
HeadinHome 51s · 2024-11-12T05:40:30.295Z
Carelessly typed S instead of L for ELI/ALANTE (and I just could not spot it!) so I had to reveal. I got some sideline coaching on this one.. partly my math was bad after the nudge.. though if NFL had been center or bottom right, I think I would have gotten this alone! Nice to do a FOOTBALL puzzle I can actually figure out.
Wow, very nicely done. I was looking at two things ITS (A GO) and (COVER UP) to see if there were things that went with GO (looked at past tense items, there were at least 8 but they spelled nothing) and things that might be a cover (like OLAY maybe) and what was UP from them. Then I figured that the wording of X across meant something, just in the way it was written and I looked for FG, TD, EP, Safety as words or abbreviations but found none. Had I just been smart enough to look in the clues. The last twist was a nice one, but of course I just did what I was told....