Sunday, February 8, 2026

LAT ~8:00 (Kyle) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
NYT 13:24 (Eric) [3.58 avg; 12 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Darby) [2.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it
Universal (Sunday) 8:55 (Jim P) [3.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Norah) [2.50 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
WaPo 6:03, meta 3 minutes (Matt G) [3.25 avg; 4 ratings] rate it

Chloe Revery’s New York Times Crossword “Who’s In Charge Here?” — Eric’s Review

Chloe Revery’s New York Times Crossword “Who’s In Charge Here?” — 2/8/26 (Click to Embiggen)

Circled letters in the theme answers hold a variety of persons who might be in charge of a workplace or organization:

• 23A [Scrunchie, e.g.] ELASTIC HAIR TIE
• 39A [Title for William beginning in 2022] PRINCE OF WALES
• 45A [Nonprofit group behind Smokey Bear and McGruff the Crime Dog] THE AD COUNCIL
• 67A [Explicit command] DIRECT ORDER
• 87A [Bright shade similar to magenta] SHOCKING PINK
• 96A [Margaret Atwood novel with a love triangle involving a paleontologist] LIFE BEFORE MAN
• 115A [Hit reality TV series suggested by this puzzle’s groups of circled letters] UNDERCOVER BOSS

Does the fact that the organizational leaders are found spanning two words in longer terms really make them “undercover”? At least the theme entries all work.

Other stuff:

• 1A [Crafty sort] ARTISAN I interpreted “crafty” as “sly” for a while. How about you?
• 35A [Disney heroine based on New Orleans chef Leah] TIANA I somehow never heard of the movie The Princess and the Frog until about a month ago. In the time since, I feel like I’ve seen Tiana in a puzzle about once each week.
• 44A [Money in rock ’n’ roll] EDDIE He had 11 Top 40 singles from 1977 to 1991.
• 74A [Sirenlike] SHRILL I filled that in and was puzzled until I realized the clue wasn’t using “siren” in the mythological sense.
• 77A [1987 Dreyfuss/DeVito comedy] TIN MEN Nothing came to mind here, though I remember thinking this Barry Levinson movie about aluminum siding salesmen in Baltimore was pretty funny.
• 33D [What many a shelter animal hopes to be] RESCUED We have a winner already for Anthropomorphic Clue of the Year.
• 108D [Something hard to face?] ACNE The cutesy clue doesn’t make this answer any more palatable.

Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post Crossword “Numbers Game” — Matt’s Review

Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post Crossword “Numbers Game” solution, 2/8/2026

Funky size this week, at 25×17, and it’s a meta. We’re looking for a 15-letter phrase. A few clues point us in the right direction, and themers are pretty clear:

• 28a [The big game] SUPER BOWL
• 46a [Matchup of Feb. 1, 2009] STEELERS CARDINALS
• 66a [Matchup of Jan. 27, 1991] GIANTS BILLS
• 94a [Matchup of Feb. 12, 2023] CHIEFS EAGLES
• 97a [Matchup of Jan. 17, 1971] COLTS COWBOYS
• 105a [Being well-informed like some sports fans might be?] KNOWING THE SCORE

So we’ve got four Super Bowls and we’re told we need to know the score. Matching the order above, the scores were:

• 27-23
• 20-19
• 38-35
• 16-13

Extracting the letters from the squares with those numbers gives us FASYFTBL. That looks like FANTASY FOOTBALL, which would be an apt meta answer, but it’s not quite the whole story. 

My next extraction attempt was to connect each pair and use the letters in intervening squares, as well. This gave BALL for 16-13 and SY for 20-19, but broke down for 38-35 and 27-23.

The way to get there is to take a letter from each intervening number between each bound:

• 27-23 gives F A N T A from squares 27, 26, 25, 24, 23
• 20-19 gives S Y from 20 and 19
• 38-35 gives F O O T
• 16-13 gives B A L L 

So FANTASY FOOTBALL is indeed our answer. I was impressed with how clean the top few rows were given the amount of meta and theme content in them. 

Other highlights: I’m somewhat sad to see OLLA, a staple of my crossword upbringing, relegated to a “found in” clue // It was amusing over the years to see various childrens shows phase in and out of BEQ’s grids as his daughter got older. Right now we have ELMO and BABYSAT from Evan // I do not know the 1992 Olympics well, but I do know that there’s an obvious first choice for a three-letter figure skater: Midori ITO 

Cheers! 

Gary Larson and Amy Ensz’s LA Times puzzle “DOING BUSINESS” – Kyle’s review

LA Times solution grid “DOING BUSINESS” – Gary Larson and Amy Ensz – Sunday 02/08/2026

Constructing duo Gary Larson and Amy Ensz, who have a penchant for punny 21x puzzles, bring us today’s LA Times crossword. This one asks solvers to re-imagine common phrases as tasks for various workers:

• 23A [Job for an elephant caretaker?] BATHING TRUNKS
• 33A [Job for a department store model?] SPORTING GOODS. Are there any department stores that use live models? I guess this could be describing a mannequin.
• 51A [Job for a tailor?] EVENING DRESSES. What is “evening” in this context?
• 65A [Job for a nanny?] HANDLING CHARGES
• 85A [Job for a cheesemonger?] PITCHING WEDGES. Good one!
• 100A [Job for an interior designer?] CHANGING ROOMS
• 117A [Job for a corporate VIP?] RUNNING BOARDS

I feel like I’ve seen Gary Larson’s name on another 21x with a work-related theme recently, but I can’t track it down. Maybe it’s just that he’s quite prolific, and job puns tend to crop up with fair regularity if you do enough puzzles. To the constructors’ credit, this set feels fresh to me.

Notes on fill and clues:

• 8D [Animals that can run up to 50 mph] HARES. Whoa, I did not realize that hares were this fast.
• 13A [Emma of “Madame Web”] ROBERTS. Never heard of this movie, but it looks like it came out in 2024, and is part of a Spider-Man series reboot…but not part of Marvel Comics Universe…OK, I’m confused! Did anyone see this movie? Incidentally, it seems Emma Roberts had only a small supporting part; Dakota Johnson played the title character.
• 106A [Whirlybird] HELO. Never heard this as a short version of “helicopter”. I had to get the O off the crossing entry NOMADS.
• 120D [Chest protector] BIB. I put in RIB first.
• 118D [Letters on Megan Rapinoe’s jersey] USA. That’s two Sundays in a row with USA clued in relation to the USWNT. On another note, who’s watching the Winter Olympics?
• 17D [Repetitive musical composition] RONDO. Here’s Olga Scheps performing Beethoven’s Rondo a capriccio Op. 129 “Rage Over A Lost Penny”

Sam Koperwas and Jeff Chen’s Universal Sunday crossword, “I’m in the Middle of Something!”—Jim P’s review

Theme answers are familiar phrases that hide foods that are typically filled with something. These food items are made with circled letters yet they each have one square within that’s not circled. Collectively, these uncircled letters spell out FILLING. We have twin revealers in “I’M STUFFED!” (23a, [“Can’t eat another bite!” … or a hint to the circled letters]) and PACKS IT IN (108a, [Quits for the day … or wedges a seven-letter word between the sets of circled letters]).

Universal Sunday crossword solution · “I’m in the Middle of Something!” · Sam Koperwas and Jeff Chen · 2.8.26

• 21a. [“Can’t eat another bite!”] “NO MORE FOR ME!” Oreo. Very apt lead-off entry. Although maybe it would’ve been better placed at the end.
• 30a. [Spanish “Later, pal!”] “ADIOS, AMIGO!” Dosa.
• 44a. [Permission to go on a field trip, e.g.] PARENTAL CONSENT. Taco.
• 63a. [Action figure manufacturing figure] DOLLMAKER. Dolma.
• 82a. [Their creative work might be tagged] GRAFFITI ARTISTS. Tart.
• 97a. [Some girls in a blended family] STEP-NIECES. Pie.
• 110a. [Resourceful person’s “supply”] BAG OF TRICKS. Bao.

An impressive set with plenty to sink your teeth into (haha). I love the tightness of the theme as well as the bonus FILLING, both of which make somewhat iffy entries like DOLLMAKER and STEP-NIECES more palatable. I also enjoyed the international flavor of the food choices, though I confess to never having had dosa. (A fact I think I’ll remedy next time I come across it.)

KENTE fabric (Photo from here.)

Not a whole lot in the long fill department thanks to all that theme material, but SRIRACHA and HUMMUS make for perfect additions to the theme. Also good: POOL CUE, “ALL I ASK…,” SORE ARM, NAMEDROP. In the new-to-me department, we find KENTE [Ghanaian cloth]. I needed all the crossings for that one, but of course I recognize the colorful patterns.

Our kittens POE (black) and Ivy

Clues of note:

• 50a. [Hit close to home?]. BUNT. Excellent clue!
• 54a. [Body part in a knee MRI]. ACL. Speaking of which…although it doesn’t seem like her torn ACL contributed to her crash. Best wishes to her for a speedy recovery.
• 92a. [Poet who inspired the Baltimore Ravens’ name]. POE. Also the inspiration for our black kitten, though I tend to call him Poe-boy.
• 16d. [Makes off-peak calls?]. YODELS. Another excellent clue.

Good puzzle all around. Four stars.