Connections: Sports Edition #776, Nov. 8, 2026: Two Hints per Group, Then the Answers

Sunday’s Connections: Sports Edition from The Athletic and New York Times (NYT) Games is puzzle #776, for Nov. 8, 2026. Two hints per group come first, then the answers, a who’s-who table and a letter table in a spoiler section.

Four mistakes are allowed. The rules are on our Connections page.

Sunday’s hints, #776, Nov. 8, 2026

Sunday’s board mixes short letter strings, everyday words and surnames. Several tiles fit more than one idea.

• Yellow hint 1: Each tile is a short stub of a longer name, the kind of letters squeezed into a corner of a game graphic.
• Yellow hint 2: All four stubs stand for teams in the same league.
• Green hint 1: Each tile is a word for one way a ball gets played in a single sport.
• Green hint 2: Each is a restart or a scoring moment rather than a player or a position.
• Blue hint 1: Four surnames of players who share one employer.
• Blue hint 2: Their positions differ, and one of them is a quarterback.
• Purple hint 1: Each tile is a word with its final letter chopped off.
• Purple hint 2: Put the missing letter back and the result is a sport that appears at the Olympic Games.

Do not lock in a group on three tiles that look alike. Two tiles here sound like they belong to a sport other than the one they are tied to, and two surnames read like ordinary words.

More of Sunday’s puzzles: Connections hints and Sunday Night Football preview. The last Sports Edition page is Connections: Sports Edition #774. Log your streak on our printable weekly calendar.

Sunday’s answers, #776, Nov. 8, 2026 (spoilers)

Stop here if you are still sorting Sunday’s tiles. Beebom and Nerdschalk both list these four groups. The yellow tiles are scoreboard codes for National Basketball Association (NBA) teams, and the blue tiles are all Jacksonville Jaguars players.

• Yellow, NBA Teams, On Scoreboards: Mem, Min, Por, Tor
• Green, Soccer Kicks: Corner, Free, Goal, Penalty
• Blue, Jacksonville Jaguars: Hunter, Lawrence, Strange, Tuten
• Purple, Olympic Sports, Minus the Last Letter: Archer, Curlin, Gol, Lug

Who are the four Jaguars on Sunday’s board?

The Jacksonville Jaguars roster page lists these players, fetched on Nov. 8, 2026.

Tile	Player	Position	Number
Hunter	Travis Hunter	Wide receiver/cornerback (WR/CB)	12
Lawrence	Trevor Lawrence	Quarterback (QB)	16
Strange	Brenton Strange	Tight end (TE)	85
Tuten	Bhayshul Tuten	Running back (RB)	33

Hunter is listed at two positions, receiver and cornerback. The other three each have one.

The scoreboard tiles are team codes, the standard NBA abbreviations:

Code	Team
Mem	Memphis Grizzlies
Min	Minnesota Timberwolves
Por	Portland Trail Blazers
Tor	Toronto Raptors

Which letter is missing from each purple word?

Tile	Missing letter	Sport
Archer	Y	Archery
Curlin	G	Curling
Gol	F	Golf
Lug	E	Luge

Why Sunday’s traps work

Goal is the green tile that sits one letter away from a purple one. Gol is not a word on its own, so it is easy to pass over, and Goal looks like the safer fit for the kicks. Read the purple tiles for a missing last letter before you place it.

Hunter and Archer both point toward the bow and the field. Only one of them is a player, and the other is a clipped sport. Free is a second pull: on its own it says little, and it needs a kick after it to mean anything here.

Strange and Lug are plain words on their own, and Lawrence is a surname with no sport attached. Sort the three-letter stubs first and the odd words fall into place.