Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition wasn’t terribly tough. It helps to be a fan of college football rivalry games, and of a certain legendary baseball player who sadly died young. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.  

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Good times outside.

Green group hint: Apple Cup is another one.

Blue group hint: Lots of rings.

Purple group hint: «Luckiest man on the face of the earth.»

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Lawn games.

Green group: College football rivalries.

Blue group: Teams with the most Super Bowl wins.

Purple group: Associated with Lou Gehrig.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is lawn games. The four answers are bocce, cornhole, croquet and horseshoes.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is college football rivalries. The four answers are Backyard Brawl (Pitt vs. West Virginia), Bedlam (Oklahoma State vs. Oklahoma), Iron Bowl (Alabama vs. Auburn) and The Game (Michigan vs. Ohio State).

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is teams with the most Super Bowl wins. The four answers are Dallas, New England, Pittsburgh and San Francisco.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is associated with Lou Gehrig. The four answers are 4, Iron Horse, New York and Wally Pipp.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is a tough one. I grabbed on to «chocolate» and ran it through every connection I could with the other words, so I landed the purple category first, which is rare. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group, to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Regular.

Green group hint: Leave.

Blue group hint: Read the fine print of your labels.

Purple group hint: Not light, but …

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Ordinary

Green group: Abandon

Blue group: Specs on consumer packaging

Purple group: Dark ____

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is ordinary. The four answers are normal, plain, standard and vanilla.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is abandon. The four answers are desert, dump, maroon and strand.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is specs on consumer packaging. The four answers are count, measure, volume and weight.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is dark ____. The four answers are ages, chocolate, horse and matter.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Oof, today’s NYT Strands puzzle was really hard for me. It was hard to figure out the theme, hard to find the answers and hard to unscramble the letters. And one of the answers relates more to travel gifts in my head than to this puzzle’s theme. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story. 

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Find the remainder

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Most of it is gone but this remains.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

• REGS, DREG, TARE, STAR, STARE, RATE, CART, CARTE, TEAR, TEARS, RACE, DIVE, DIVED, SEER, NOSE, VOTE, RINSE.

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

• DREGS, TRACE, REMNANT, RESIDUE, VESTIGE, SOUVENIR

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is LEFTOVERS. To find it, look for the L that is three letters to the right on the bottom row, and wind up.