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★ We have some very good puzzles coming up this week but I give the POW! to Gary for his strong early-week work. There's at least one other puzzle which I thought deserved a POW!, but to make a Monday puzzle stand out deserves recognition.

Monday puzzles are often derided by expert solvers as boring or tedious, so having a theme which is different (or does something to entertain) is important in order to satisfy a large range of solvers. In today's puzzle, I had to look back at the theme answers when I was done to figure out how they all tied together, and the fact that Gary hid the theme words in plain view (see highlighted words, which describe a touchdown play) brought a smile to my face.

Additionally, Monday puzzles are perhaps the most difficult to make, because the constructor cannot rely on using ORTs or spreading OLEO in order to complete a tough section. A perfect Monday puzzle should be super smooth, enough for the novice solver to not get too discouraged (by thinking they must learn a foreign language including ORTS and OLEO) and also have a reasonable chance of finishing. Will and I may disagree on the last point, but I maintain that creating early-week puzzles which new solvers can achieve the "I finished the NYT crossword!" high is important for the future of crosswords.

So let's look at Gary's fill. Not only does he keep the crosswordese to a minimum (AMAH being the misdemeanor), but he gives us a ton of 7-letter fill including RAKES IN, DIETERS, and HELLUVA. I'm with Will on ROULADE, it's something interesting to learn (and tasty!). AGORA I'm less positive on, but since it's an important feature of Greek history and we still see its influence in the word AGORAPHOBIA, it's legit.

Gary obviously put a lot of time and care into this puzzle. A great start to the week.

– puzzle by Gary Cee

★ Amazing work from Damon. This is only the sixth Shortz-era NYT "Schrödinger" puzzle; see the others here. These types, having two equally correct answers, are so tough to construct without making the clue too broad ("Five-letter word", e.g.), favor one answer over the other, or sound forced. We've had some good puzzles this week (and still more to come), but this one is fantastic.

From a construction standpoint, this grid may not look like much. Four pairs of intersecting theme answers and four 4-letter words, what's the big deal, right? Consider this: because eight of Damon's theme answers are short (three, four, or five letters), that means he had to incorporate longer fill in order to obey the 78 word limit. His grid has six long fill slots, and he populated them with OSCAR NODS, NIGHT OWL, TIGHT WAD, ART TATUM (one of my favorite pianists), STRATEGO, ODD OR EVEN, all snazzy entries. Six out of six! Talk about sticking the landing.

To be fair, as with any puzzle there are slight compromises. Some solvers might find the UNEVIE/ACELA crossing unfair, and DORR isn't as nice a theme answer as the much more natural PORT, CORP, and MORT. But these are minor issues, ones easily overshadowed by the puzzle's overall excellence.

Finally, David Steinberg uncovered perhaps the first Schrödinger puzzle in the NYT. Amazing what David has turned up in his pre-Shortzian efforts. Please save a job for me for when you take over the world, David. Er, Mr. Steinberg.

– puzzle by Damon Gulczynski

★ POW! (wow!) I swore I wouldn't choose two themeless puzzles in a row for Jeff's Puzzle of the Week, but I couldn't stop myself after doing Josh's puzzle. Triple-stack constructions can be judged by 1.) the sparkliness of the long entries and 2.) the number and quality of ugly short crossings. Each one of Josh's quadrants shines in both areas; so many debut phrases and nary a stinker of a crossing (GAOL isn't great, but it's fair game for a Saturday puzzle). These days editors and solvers prize snazzy multiple-word phrases, and out of twelve long answer slots, Josh fills nine of them with great entries like JACK SQUAT and KINGS RANSOM. And for the three other slots where he has one-word entries, he and Will come up with fantastic clues to spruce them up.

Ah, the beauty of the cluing. Jim and I were both amazed at the cleverness behind "It opens during the fall". Such a wonderful example of the wordplay that has helped define the Shortz era themeless. And "Fall fallout, some believe" clue echoes the word "fall", giving a touch of elegance.

Finally, let's look at the inclusion of "Scrabbly" letters, notably J, Q, X, Z which are usually the hardest to incorporate. They often make a puzzle stand out, because the difficulty of puzzle-filling is proportional (more or less) to the number of Scrabbly letters. Josh uses four of these, plus five Ks, yet still manages to pull off great triple-stacks. Well done!

Final note: Matt Ginsberg, friend and creator of Dr. Fill (crossword-solving AI), warned me that having a POW! might cause six constructors sadness because their puzzle didn't get chosen that week. My intent is always to be a positive force for crosswords, so let me emphasize that we've had a lot of really good puzzles this week (and wait until you do tomorrow's!). I'll continue to use the POW! to recognize what I personally see as excellence above and beyond.

– puzzle by Josh Knapp

★ POW! In the spirit of the great Ryan and Brian (of "Ryan and Brian do Crosswords"), I'm trying out a new feature: Jeff's Puzzle of the Week!, or POW! for short. I'll use it to celebrate what I believe is the "best" puzzle of the week, the one that best exemplifies what that type of puzzle (early-week, late-week, themeless, or Sunday-size) ought to be. This week my POW! goes to Ian for his beauty of a themeless.

Ian incorporates several marquee answers to bring a smile to solvers' faces (BOBBLE HEAD, MAC N CHEESE, EPIC WIN, etc.), with a minimum of subpar entries (if ES SU and ENE are your worst entries, that's a tremendous success). Most notably, look at the wide-open NE and SW sections, big 6x5 blocks of white space that typically require an ugly answer or two to fill. I often shudder when faced with these types of cavernous areas, usually having to redo the section two or three dozen times before I get something even passable. Ian's are impeccably executed, not a stinker amongst them, and he even managed to work in BRAPADS and RWANDA, a call-out to his seed entry.

Speaking of that, I really enjoy learning what a constructor used to seed a themeless puzzle. I expect that some people are going to gripe about JUBA because they've never heard of it, but I think it's a perfect example of something I was glad to learn about.

Final note: great to hear Ian's comment about SIDESHOW BOB. Kudos to him for this decision; it's really tough as a constructor to give up on an answer you love, but it's the right thing to do if it means coming up with better overall fill. This willingness is one factor that separates the great constructors from the rest.

– puzzle by Ian Livengood