Football

The release of Panini Classics Football always serves as a reminder that across the country, teams will be assembling in the summer heat for another pre-season training camp. An annual set designed to showcase players who have changed teams in the off-season in their new uniforms, as well as usher in the leagues new rookie crop, Classics includes just enough retired greats to be worthy of it’s brand name.

Opening this year’s version, one glaring design error caught my eye but somehow failed to be seen by the manufacturers design and quality control departments. The Classics logo in the bottom left-hand corner reads, “Classics 09-10”, when in actuality this is technically a 2010-’11 product. On the subject of overall card deign, there seems to be a disproportionate amount of open space at the top of the base cards. To Panini’s credit however, they choose to not utilize their infamous foil board for the product, which is a nice change of pace.

2010 NFL Product Debuts Today With Panini Prestige Football

NEW YORK, NY (May 13, 2010) – Panini America (www.paniniamerica.net), a subsidiary of The Panini Group, the leading global publisher of sports and entertainment collectables, announced today that the National Football League and NFL PLAYERS (the marketing and licensing arm of the NFLPA) has awarded them a multi-year trading card licensing agreement and license for Stickers/Sticker albums. The 2010 NFL season marks the first year Panini will produce NFL Trading Cards under their new agreement. Panini produced NFL Trading Cards after purchasing Donruss Playoff in 2009.

Arlington, Texas; May 5, 2010 – Quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers are usually the top picks for NFL card collectors, but this year an offensive tackle will be a trading card in demand for many collectors. Ed Wang, who made history last week as being the first player of full Chinese descent drafted into the NFL, will have his official NFL rookie trading card in 2010 Panini Prestige set to debut on May 12. Wang will one of the 100 different rookies included in the set.

Sports card leader unveils latest gridiron collection; once again, autographs are all hard-signed on cards!

Carlsbad, CA – Just one week after the New Orleans Saints upset the favored Indianapolis Colts, 31-17, in Super Bowl XLIV, the Upper Deck Company is launching its latest gridiron card set: 2009 SP Authentic Football. Chock full of autographed memorabilia cards (one per hobby box), SP Authentic kicks off today in hobby shops across the nation.

Topps is confirming that there are 25 short printed base cards seeded 1 in 6 packs in the recently-released all-painted 2009 Topps Chicle Football. (image attached). The short prints are as follows:

22
Johnny Knox

24
James Harrison

26
Clay Matthews

In the past few weeks I have reviewed my New York Jets autograph and memorabilia collection and I noticed an important player who wasn’t represented.

First off I will divulge that my favorite all-time players are Joe Namath, Don Maynard, Freeman McNeil, Greg Buttle (Hey I worked at his health spa and prevented his kitchen from burning down. I saved the manager’s job for sure and got one as a result), Joe Klecko, Ken O’Brien, Wayne Chrebet, Curtis Martin, Chad Pennington and from this new squad Mark Sanchez and Darrelle Revis. I have autographs or cards of every one of these players. Now once in a while I will get autographs or cards of some other important players in Gang Green’s history and that's when I noticed one was missing.