SPORTS FUN
Weddle? Poeltl? Larry Birdle? NFL, NBA, MLB Wordle? All the latest versions
The letter-combination game Wordle quickly went viral, was then acquired by the New York Times, and ever since has seen a whole lot of spin-offs.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last several months, you’ll have, at least, heard of the online game, Wordle. Well, if you enjoy that daily letter conundrum and you’re also a sports fan, then you are going to want to keep reading as there are multiple versions available. And they’re only a finger touch of a screen away...
What is Wordle?
First things first - mainly for those former rock dwellers - a little background on the original game. In January 2022, more than two million people around the world were playing Wordle, and its popularity, after being created to entertain a girlfriend, saw it being acquired by the New York Times. You attempt to guess the five-letter word, clues are then provided from green (right letter, right place) and yellow (right letter, wrong place) boxes, and you’ve got six shots at it.
Oh, and it’s totally not addictive! 🤨
How do I get and play NFL Weddle?
So, you understand the standard version but have too much time on your hands to be limited to just that, especially as you have to wait until midnight for the next challenge. Step forward ‘Weddle’.
Do you know your NFL players well? You’ll need to if you want to succeed at this tricky game.
The premise is simple enough. Eight guesses to identify the gridiron star and, just like the original Wordle, each effort is rewarded with colour-coded clues (team, division, position, height, age and number) to guide you towards the solution. Go on, take a punt on your opening name and see how much yardage you can get.
How do I get and play NBA Wordle?
For the more ball, bounce, hoop of you out there, ‘Poeltl’ is an NBA focused game along similar lines.
Below you’ll find guidance on how to play and to access the game this website is your place. A quick heads-up, I failed badly in my first couple of attempts!
How to play NBA Wordle:
Like Weddle, you get eight guesses, try any current NBA player!
Green in any column indicates a match! Yellow in the team column indicates the mystery player at one point played for this team, but does not currently. Yellow in the position column indicates a partial match to the mystery player’s position Yellow in any other column indicates this attribute is within 2 (inches, years, numbers) of the mystery player
If you get stuck, try enabling silhouette mode! A new mystery player every day!
Need more hoop-slamming mysteries, head across to Larry Birdle for your eight guesses, I mean, cleverly anticipated postulations.
MLB Wordle: step up to bat
Baseball gets a go at this whole word play, thanks to the creators at WARdle (yeah, that name concerned me too at first). The rules are rather familiar, you’ll be glad to know:
How to play WARdle:
You get eight guesses, clearly the magic number, and the guidelines are rather familiar by now.
Green in any column indicates a match. Yellow in ‘YOB’ column indicates 2 years within Birth Year. Yellow in ‘Position’ column means the mystery player has played at least 10 games at this position, but it was not his primary position.
Players teams are categorized by who they played the most games for last season.
A new Mystery Player daily.
What other Wordle options are there?
Really? You want more? OK then, here’s a version based on the NHL called Gordle (much more aligned with the original). Here’s another for college football names called CFBordle. And then there’s one for Taylor Swift fans called Taylordle (see what they did there?) and other musical treats.
There is another NFL game, Fumble, which challenges you to find the mystery gridiron player, using a selection of information related to the athlete, including height, age, weight... If you’re a fan of the other type of football, more specifically the Premier League, you can enjoy surname guessing with FootballWordle.
This was the best list of all the different variations out there that I could find. I have not had the time to get through them all so have a blast and let me know your favourite.
Wordle harder with New York Times?
Although there are no signs of an acquisition of the sports and other spin-offs, many players of the original version took to social media last year complaining that the game seemed more difficult since being taken over by the New York Times. Players voiced outrage over words like vivid, cynic, ulcer, and rupee being used which contain irregular vowel placements making them more difficult to guess.
The NYT was quick to deny any such allegations but over time we’ve certainly seen a few that seem more difficult compared to those selected before the acquisition. Maybe just the way they fell...