NEW YORK, September 11 — The story begins, as so many football weeks do, with a quiz. The Athletic published its weekly sports trivia feature on September 10, a recurring lifestyle and fandom product that invites readers to test their recall of the week’s storylines. This edition arrives at the opening of the 2026 NFL season, a week the outlet frames as the arrival of football.
At its heart, the week is a convergence of calendars. The quiz follows a Wednesday Super Bowl rematch between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, and precedes a Thursday Night Football broadcast that the outlet notes is technically a Friday morning kickoff, ahead of the first NFL Sunday of the 2026 season.
The week that was
The college football slate carries ranked teams in action on both Thursday and Friday, plus a Saturday night showdown between No. 1 Ohio State and No. 4 Texas. For those involved, it is a stretch that asks fans to hold several seasons in their heads at once. The quiz sits alongside the outlet’s other recurring interactive products, among them its Connections: Sports Edition game, which asks players to spot the pattern, connect the terms, and find the hidden link between sports terms.
The article’s illustration is credited to Demetrius Robinson of The Athletic, with photographs by Gregory Shamus and Joe Sargent of Getty Images and by Kirby Lee and Jamie Sabau of Imagn Images. The page also carries a share article prompt and the figure 17.
What to watch next
The outlet’s navigation lists recurring newsletters across its beats, among them The Bounce for the NBA, The Windup for MLB, The Athletic FC for soccer, Full Time for NWSL and women’s soccer, Prime Tire for Formula 1, and Peak for the Olympics, along with podcasts, odds, picks, standings, schedules, fantasy rankings, the transfer portal, recruiting, the NBA Draft, and the college football bracket. The September 10 edition also follows the U.S. Open in the outlet’s tennis coverage, and it sits alongside NFL Week 1 projections and fantasy rankings.
The quiz is a recurring lifestyle and fandom feature rather than a news report, inviting readers to test their recall of the week’s storylines while the NFL, college football, and tennis calendars converge.
