Hosts file hacking is a good idea.

I can ping 142.251.33.174, so I tried adding these to my /etc/hosts file, but it does not solve the problem:

142.251.33.174 sheets.google.com
142.251.33.174 www3.l.google.com

I can tell the modified hosts file is working because when I type "ping sheets.google.com" it pings the updated address. It just still doesn't allow that page to load in the browser.

On the other hand, "sheets" isn't the only page that loads, it might need to connect to "docs.google.com" too so I'll poke at changing that as well.