Title: “Elite Eight”
Prompt: This puzzle’s contest answer is the one of the eight teams left in the NFL playoffs that I think is going to win the Super Bowl.
Answer: The GREEN BAY PACKERS, found by 592 solvers, of which 581 were solo solves

Easy one since Weeks 1 & 2 played harder than expected. Seven Across entries in the grid were geographical place names with one letter missing:

1-A: [The Sunshine Skyway Bridge crosses it] = TAM(P)A BAY
8-A: [City on the Niagara River] = BUFF(A)LO
23-A: [Nob Hill’s city] = SAN FRAN(C)ISCO
35-A: [Birthplace of Dianne Wiest and Ellie Kemper] = (K)ANSAS CITY
51-A: [Fell’s Point’s city] = BALTIMOR(E)
54-A: [“Sister, Sister” city] = DET(R)OIT
62-A: [“___, we have a problem”] = HOU(S)TON

Those are seven of the eight teams that were remaining in the NFL Playoffs at the time of publication; their missing letters spell the eighth, PACKERS, which would be the contest answer GREEN BAY PACKERS, found by 592 solvers.

It looked good for a while, but sadly my prediction unraveled in the fourth quarter as San Francisco rallied to win. Oh well…moving on to our Week 4…

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer, which is 21 letters long, is what you might take to solve this meta.

NOTE: Due to the Saturday post, the deadline for entries this week is noon ET on Wednesday, January 31st.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.