Constructor: Lewis Rothlein
Relative difficulty: Medium (5:34)
![]()
THEME: OFFSIDES (38D: Football offense ... or a hint to six answers in this puzzle) — well, for six answers, the correct answer is flanked on either "side" by letters that are ... extra. I don't know if they're "off" in the sense of "wrong" or "off" in the sense of "off to the side." Do the letters need to come "off" of the "sides" to make sense? This is bizarre, since as a solver, I have to Put Those Letters In ... but then imagine them Off? What? Anyway, one letter is added to either side of clued answer to get new word or phrase. There doesn't appear to be any rationale to which letters are used, what the new phrases are, etc. You just ... add two letters. Could be any two letters:
Theme answers:
![]()
I enjoyed solving this one, mostly because the fill was clean, varied, and interesting (MOCHI!—if I knew that word, I'd forgotten it. So cute!). The theme was ultimately a let-down, though. I kept waiting to hit the revealer, but I didn't get there until the very end, and when I did ... very little was explained. I knew by that point that, for the themers, the clued answer was flanked by two letters that formed a new phrase. OFFSIDES did little to explain that. Or, it did too much. At any rate, the meaning that the revealer is going for is still not totally clear to me. And it does nothing to explain why these letters, why these new phrases / words? In the end, there appears to be no answer for the why question(s). A truly killer puzzle would've found another layer, one where the letters that are "off" to the "sides" somehow mattered. Taken in order, they might have spelled something. I don't know. I just know that when I got BALONEY, I was like "Oooh, a message! First word 'BY'. Next word ... [solves NE corner] ... 'SY'? What the heck?" After SKETCHY, I realized the letters wouldn't do anything (not consecutively, anyway) and the OFFSIDES letters were not always going to be "B" and "Y." So I just opened myself up to the reality of randomness and dove in. When you lower your expectations, good things happen. Also, when you fill your grids well, good things happen. As I say, I liked hacking through this. The revealer just CLUNKED, for me (57A: Knocked, like heavy machinery). Hope you'd heard of a KETCH before! Otherwise, that SKETCHY themer might've knocked you around a bit.
Got started pretty easily. The NW offered very little resistance, even with that themer in there. Put AMANAS in immediately, then SEL and NOIRS and I was underway. Had somewhat more trouble in the NE, as I did not know (remember?) Janet MCTEER, so I needed every cross for that (10D: Actress Janet with a Tony, Drama Desk and Olivier Award). Luckily I knew LENA (21A: Actress Headey of "Game of Thrones"), because that MCTEER / LENA cross is unkind. Not great to cross two of the same kind of proper noun like that, when neither has superstar / universal recognition status. Especially bad to cross at a vowel. Now MCTEER seems more likely than MCTAER, but ... actually, does it? MCTEER's not exactly a common name. Anyway, some poor souls will wreck on that cross, I promise you. RODE HERD is a phrase I haven't encountered in a while, so that took a few ticks to become clear (37D: Kept a close eye (on)). And I just blanked on OPTIMAS because ugh, car names, so many (55A: Midsize Kias). Brain kept going ALTIMAS! But then other Brain would go "That's Nissan, dummy." Lather rinse repeat. But I worked it out.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. for non-sports folks, "traveling" is a basketball violation that's called you take more than two STEPS without the ball being dribbled (50A: Traveling, so to speak, in basketball). STEPS has become basketball slang for "traveling."
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Medium (5:34)
Theme answers:
- B ALONE Y (12A: Unassisted)
- S KETCH Y (14A: Two-masted vessel)
- I FORGE T (26A: Blacksmith's workplace)
- T ANGEL O (45A: Perfect child)
- U PEARL Y (59A: 30th anniversary gift)
- S OTHER E (60A: Not this or that)
noun
• • •
Got started pretty easily. The NW offered very little resistance, even with that themer in there. Put AMANAS in immediately, then SEL and NOIRS and I was underway. Had somewhat more trouble in the NE, as I did not know (remember?) Janet MCTEER, so I needed every cross for that (10D: Actress Janet with a Tony, Drama Desk and Olivier Award). Luckily I knew LENA (21A: Actress Headey of "Game of Thrones"), because that MCTEER / LENA cross is unkind. Not great to cross two of the same kind of proper noun like that, when neither has superstar / universal recognition status. Especially bad to cross at a vowel. Now MCTEER seems more likely than MCTAER, but ... actually, does it? MCTEER's not exactly a common name. Anyway, some poor souls will wreck on that cross, I promise you. RODE HERD is a phrase I haven't encountered in a while, so that took a few ticks to become clear (37D: Kept a close eye (on)). And I just blanked on OPTIMAS because ugh, car names, so many (55A: Midsize Kias). Brain kept going ALTIMAS! But then other Brain would go "That's Nissan, dummy." Lather rinse repeat. But I worked it out.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. for non-sports folks, "traveling" is a basketball violation that's called you take more than two STEPS without the ball being dribbled (50A: Traveling, so to speak, in basketball). STEPS has become basketball slang for "traveling."
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]