Hey there, Connectors! I hope you’ve had a fantastic weekend so far.

All right, gang, this is it. Today, I either win my 365th game of Connections in a row — a full year! — or this run ends in glorious failure. Much like the attempts of the Scotland men’s national football team to qualify for an international tournament for much of this century (an ignominious run that thankfully came to an end in recent years).

It doesn’t really matter either way. But a win today would be at least a little satisfying. :)

Before we begin, we have a great little community on Discord, where we chat about NYT Connections, the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot, and you’re more than welcome to join us.

Discord is also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare (or not-so-rare) occasions that I mess something up. I don’t look at Twitter much.

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Sunday, March 1 are coming right up.

Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I’ll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.

Today’s 16 words are...

And the level one hints for today’s Connections groups are:

Need some extra help? 

Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.

Let’s take a look at one word for each group.

Today’s Connections word hints are…

Today’s Connections groups are...

Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.

This is your final warning!

Today’s Connections answers are...

Friends, the run is over. Too many mistakes today. My efforts to reach a year-long streak have fallen apart at the last hurdle. I am ruined.

I am kidding.

Sorry.

I blitzed through this game in no time at all.

JOHANNESBURGER made the purples clear immediately and I squared those away at the jump. SMILING FACE WITH SUNGLASSES was obviously an emoji, but I first cleared out what had to be the small bites first. From there, the blues and greens were both fairly evident to me.

And that's that. A 365-day streak.

I don't feel any different. This landmark hasn't changed my life in any perceptible way (however, writing about this game every day for the last two and a half years certainly has!). I don't have anything deep or meaningful to say about having a year-long streak. Onto the next one!

How did you get on today? Here's my grid:

🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩

That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. I’ll be back over at Forbes for the Monday-Friday editions for the column. And if you haven’t subscribed to Pastimes already, definitely do that! It would be super sweet of you.

P.S. I was absolutely delighted to learn recently that American Football (the brilliant Midwest emo band, not the sport) have a new album coming soon. Their first record is a masterpiece and the other two are great as well.

However, until recently, I had somehow overlooked that back in 2024, they released something pretty interesting. To mark the 25th anniversary of their first album (aka LP1), they released an album of other artists covering songs from that record.

I've long liked Iron and Wine (aka singer-songwriter Sam Beam) and his version of "Never Meant" — arguably American Football's best-known song and perhaps the quintessential Midwest emo anthem — is really lovely:

And incase you're unfamiliar, here's American Football's original version of "Never Meant." I’m also gonna give you also a live version in which the crowd sings along to the mid-song guitar riff. I really love that too:

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!

On weekdays, you can find this column over at Forbes. Please follow my blog there for more coverage of NYT Connections and other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot!

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