Too Many Chiefs

This played a little bit like Jeopardy for me -- I found all the answers to the category but had to think of the questions to get me there. Enjoyed it. Thanks, Jay.

It wasn't until I finished it that I saw that the clues all contain presidents -- brilliant!

Had to backsolve OBIT but don't know what the P is. I thought maybe BROWNS was DeteriorateS with age for an S but... PITCH? PODS?

Took me forever to see Step 1. Quite the challenge, Jay!

Total WAG for me!

Whew! That was a workout. Needed the Discorders to hash it out. Great puzzle!

Took me a while but I think I found all the alternative clue/answers to get the letters. I was expecting them to be in order but that wasn’t the case. Tough meta but very clever! Good Monday mental workout! Thanks, Jay!

Helps to be a baseball fan on the P letter. I’m a big one - so that came quickly. I am explaining on Discord what it means

Failure to consider the clues bites me in the butt, iteration 4575. Even after that I was busy trying to convert info about the Chiefs into the answer. Never occurred to me to look for alts until someone suggested it in the group solve. Despite the fact that I knew from the get go that the 1D clue was highly dubious. Ah well. Sometimes you just don't see 'em. :) Fun stuff, thanks. Love the 56A and 63D clues. Was surprised when 'lasagna' didn't fit at 62A

Thanks Jay! I found OTUOS and figured it HAD to be POTUS. I was using 54D for SHAKE IT OFF. I suppose that should be 1D? A sports thing. Which is appropriate since you stepped in as a pinch hitter today. Thanks so much for coming to the MMM rescue.

Needed the first hint on the Muggles site to get on the right track. I had Usher - Escort, Test - Probe, and Sears - Browns but couldn't figure out how to connect them or find two more pairs. I had Carb - Nacho for a while, which got me nowhere (obviously). In any case, thanks for the puzzle, Jay - I'm OTC now!

^^^ Yes, I was considering the O from OKNOW ("All right, let's move on") or the N from NOTCOOL ("Bad idea") before I lit upon that unusual 1D clue and realized the P was perfect fit, clue-wise and then answer wise! Very nice work, Jay! Thanks!

Had UTUOS.. cuz “All right let’s move on”. is the very definition of Shake it Off! Had to backsolve for the baseball signal. Great fun! Thx. I needed a little assist or really just encouragement on Discord. What to STOP looking for or at (themer letters, middle names like Milhouse..)

Solved. It was pretty easy to make the connections between ESCORT and USHER, PROBE and TEST, and BROWNS and SEARS. I had to backsolve for the other two letters. I could not make it work until I read the clues for PITCH and OBIT. It was easier to go from the clues for the alternate answers to the original answers than vice versa, if that makes sense. Very clever using the past presidents as asterisks!

I at first saw PIERCE and thought AHA, Indians, Nez Perce, an I left over...but that was it. Then Cleveland team that never played in a Superbowl, well the Indians never have (nor will) play in a Superbowl so...but again dead end. Gosh what could it be? Hey wait a minute, PIERCE, CLEVELAND, lets look at symmetry...yep there is FORD and GARFIELD and TAYLOR, so what do the letters of their clue, answer, first name spell - NOTHING, damn!! Oh, Presidential number, of course!!! That gave me CHAIN or CHINA of CHIAO since our friend Garfield was the only other double-crosser (oops, backer) than the current occupant of the office, so he has two numbers. But, neither seems to fit and I had to anagram to get there, I'm marking that as unlikely.

Then I read the prompt and remembered my own that had a POTUS answer and remembered struggling with that same wording. So hail to the CHIEF of Tchotchkes and misdirection! Thanks Jay

Took me a bit - and Nudge 2 - to get out of football. Deceptively clever Jay! But I do think 23A was a better match for PROBE. Sorry, I'll show myself out

Needed a couple nudges, but enjoyed it!

I did not even see the additional elegance (though I suspected there was some because, otherwise, the "click" was less "clicky". I got to POTUS by seeing all the Presidents and catching on from the meta statement that it was 5 letters and not necessarily a word. It is only going back now that the alternates make sense: PITCH OBIT TEST USHER SEARS.

Very nicely done for a last minute tap on the shoulder!

I had SHAKE IT OFF going with Eschew, which gave me the S from SHUN. Then I ordered the letters incorrectly and ended up with OUSTS. Seems right to me, but maybe my politics got the better of me!

This was really hard. I needed all the nudges and still got stuck on most of the steps. E.g. 41A, 2D, 25D, 28D, & 56D could potentially be proper nouns to me, and for alternate clues, 54D could fit 18A, 13D could fit 40A, and 48A could even fit 70A (a stretch, I'll admit). I still don't know which of the alternates is an NFL player, nobody in the Giants roster I googled matches. I can't even really blame my lack of sports knowledge as most of the meta wasn't actually sports-related. Oh well.

Tough one!