Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, Breaking the Rules

There are spoilers ahead. You might want to solve today's puzzle before reading further! Breaking the Rules

Constructor: Tracy Gray

Editor: Amanda Rafkin

What I Learned from Today’s Puzzle

• LEWIS (45A: Jazz drummer Nash) Jazz drummer LEWIS Nash has an amazing discography. He has played on over 400 records! He served as bandleader on five of those records. Since 2017, LEWIS Nash has been on the jazz studies faculty at Arizona State University.
• LAUREN (45D: Actress Tom) LAUREN Tom portrayed Lena St. Clair (one of the daughters) in the movie The Joy Luck Club (1993). She also portrayed Julie, a recurring character in the second season of the TV series Friends. LAUREN Tom has done voice work for a number of TV shows, movies, and video games.

Random Thoughts & Interesting Things

• SHO (5A: "Yellowjackets" channel, for short) Showtime (SHO, for short) describes their TV series, Yellowjackets, as "part survival epic, part psychological horror, and part coming-of-age drama." The show tells the story of a high school girls' soccer team whose plane crashes in the wilderness. The show recounts the time of survival after the crash, as well as events that occur 25 years later. Yellowjackets premiered in 2021. Its third season is scheduled to be released in 2025.
• TREAT (18A: Pet's reward) and VET (44A: Animal hospital doc) and CANS (29D: Cat food containers) We have a trio of cat-related clues/answers today, and my cat, Willow, is happy about two of them. I took this photo of Willow the other day as she was attentively looking out of our basement window. If you look closely, you can see the bunny in the yard that attracted her attention. The bunny was not at all worried; it knew it was safe from the inside cat.

• NET (42A: Part of a lacrosse goal) Lacrosse is the oldest organized sport played in North America, as it originated with indigenous peoples as early as the 12th century. Players use the head of their stick, which features a NET, to carry, pass, catch, and shoot the rubber ball into the goal. As lacrosse goals are not situated on the end boundary line, play often occurs behind the goal. The NET on the lacrosse goal prevents a ball that has crossed the goal line from reentering the field of play.
• SLOGANS (51A: "Taste the Rainbow" and "Just Do It", e.g.) "Taste the Rainbow" is the SLOGAN for Skittles, and "Just Do It," is a SLOGAN for Nike.
• IRA (53A: "SEP" or "SIMPLE" savings plan) SEP and SIMPLE are varieties of Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). SEP stands for Simple Employee Pension, and SIMPLE stands for Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees. The abbreviations SEP and SIMPLE in the clue alert solvers that the answer will be an abbreviation.
• RUSSET APPLES (56A: Yellowish-brown fruits in an orchard) RUSSET APPLES are varieties of APPLES that exhibit russeting, rough patches of yellowish-brown that cover part or all of the fruit. RUSSET APPLES are often aromatic and sweet.
• GREEN (67A: Kermit the Frog's color) I'm a fan of any clue that gives a shoutout to Kermit the Frog. The GREEN puppet was created by Jim Henson, and first introduced in 1955. Kermit was the showrunner and host of The Muppet Show, and is the protagonist of many of the Muppet movies.
• TEAM (4D: Orioles, Cardinals, or Blue Jays) The Baltimore Orioles, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Toronto Blue Jays are Major League Baseball (MLB) TEAMs.
• LOIS (26D: "The Giver" author Lowry)  LOIS Lowry's 1993 dystopian novel, The Giver, is on many middle school reading lists. The book imagines a world in which pain and strife have been taken away and replaced by "sameness." The Giver won the 1994 Newberry Medal, an honor awarded for "distinguished contributions to American literature for children." A 2014 film adaptation of the book starred Meryl Streep, Jeff Bridges and Brenton Thwaites.
• SLED (36D: Skeleton racer's vehicle) In the winter sliding sport known as skeleton, a face-down, head-first person rides a small SLED down a frozen track. The rider gets a running start at the beginning of the race. Skeleton was an event at the Winter Olympics in 1928 and 1948, but wasn't added permanently to the Olympic program until the 2002 Winter Olympics. Skeleton racers can reach speeds of up to 81 mph.
• ELEVEN (49D: Baker's dozen minus two) A baker's dozen is thirteen, so thirteen minus two equals ELEVEN. The most widely accepted theory about how the term baker's dozen came to mean 13 dates back to medieval England. There were laws at the time that prevented bakers from cheating their customers, which some bakers would do by selling underweight loaves. These laws required a dozen baked goods to be a certain weight, and breaking the laws could result in fines or flogging. Bakers adopted the practice of adding a bit extra to an order to make sure they met the weight requirement.
• LEE (61D: "Squid Game" actress Yoo-mi) Squid Game is a South Korean TV series about a group of players who risk their lives playing deadly children's games for the chance to win a large cash prize. Squid Game was released on Netflix in 2021. LEE Yoo-mi portrayed Ji-yeong, a young woman recently released from prison after killing her abusive step-father, a role for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award.

Crossword Puzzle Theme Synopsis

• RUMMAGE SALES (19A: Events to move secondhand goods)
• RUNS IN CIRCLES (37A: Wastes one's time and effort)
• RUSSET APPLES (56A: Yellowish-brown fruits in an orchard)

Each theme answer is BREAKING THE word RULES, such that RU- appears at the beginning of the word, and -LES occurs at the end: RUMMAGE SALES, RUNS IN CIRCLES, and RUSSET APPLES.

The title of today's puzzle, BREAKING THE RULES, allowed me to guess exactly what to expect from the puzzle's theme. Because of what I suspected the theme would be, I guessed RUMMAGE SALES as the answer to 19-Across instead of "garage SALES" (which fits the clue but doesn't have enough letters). I wasn't sure exactly what kind of APPLES were being described in the clue for 56-Across, but because I knew the theme, I was able to fill in RU___APPLES until the help of crossing answers revealed the rest. Thank you, Tracy, for this enjoyable puzzle.

For more on USA TODAY’s Crossword Puzzles

• USA TODAY’s Daily Crossword Puzzles
• Sudoku & Crossword Puzzle Answers