LAST WEEK’s PUZZLE:

Title: “Moving Day”
Prompt: This puzzle’s contest answer is a penalty in (American) football.
Answer: DELAY OF GAME, found by 278 solvers, 256 of whom were solo solves; also accepted a number of other answers

Supposed to be a gimme, but a little more confusing than I thought! Idea was: each of our theme entries has a board game in its name, but with the game’s name shifted to the end of the entry. Like so:

20-A: [Colonel Mustard or Mrs. Peacock, say?] = SOMEONE IN CLUE. Original phrase is “Clue someone in,” but with the game moved to the end.
27-A: [Parker Brothers classic played in Maine or Minnesota, as opposed to Nova Scotia or New Brunswick?] = IN A STATE, SORRY!. From “in a sorry state” but with STATE moved.
41-A: [Tournament strategy game that counts towards your rating?] = ON-THE-RECORD-GO. Go on the record.
46-A: [16-dice fun played entirely in your head?] = THE MIND BOGGLE. Boggle the mind.

Leading to contest answer DELAY OF GAME, which was found by 278 solvers (i.e. the name of the game was delayed until the end of the entry) But a bunch of other answers came in as well, which really shouldn’t happen on a Week 1: FALSE START, ILLEGAL SHIFT, ILLEGAL FORMATION…it was all a bit much for Week 1, so I declared a general amnesty on those and a few other alt-answers. Hate to do it but there was just a little too much wiggle room for other answers last week to feel comfortable.

Onward and hopefully upward…

THIS WEEK’S PUZZLE:

Today’s puzzle is Week 2 of 4 in September. This puzzle’s contest answer is a former U.S. Open tennis champ (men’s or women’s). Good luck!