On second thought... never mind. I'm gonna run with the weird pattern/ruleset that I ended up with based on that row being correct as is, since @praful apparently reached the same conclusion.
These are my answers based on puzzle #2 being correct as is:
- NFL football = 23, soccer ball = 7, baseball = 18
- 24, 54, 9
- E (Mary)
- 10, 14