I love the NFL draft, so much so that I spend most of the months leading up to it going through mock after mock to determine my potential targets for the upcoming season. This year, with the Vikings having such a high pick, it was going to be interesting to see if I was going to get someone new to collect this year. Now that they have taken an OT and a defensive back, I know its going to be a slow year for me – homer collecting-wise.

Another huge aspect of tonight was both Topps and Panini lighting up Twitter with previews of upcoming cards now that the rookies have teams to wear on their jerseys. Both made great use of a new program developed last year that can project pro uniforms over existing college ones. This has led to a huge success already in 2011 Inception, and we can see that this tactic is going to come through big in 2012 as well. Both companies previewed some big cards, and I must say I am very excited despite the bloated product calendar of 18 each.

My favorite was definitely the updated base Topps preview as its obvious to me that this design is a huge winner. On par with the amazing design in 2010, this year’s class is well deserving of an incredible base concept used in both flagship Topps and Chrome. I am beyond excited to get my hands on the initial Topps branded cards with these players, as long as they continue to look as good as they did tonight.

We also got our first look at the Chrome plastic helmet cards out of the new set Bowman Signature, which were a nice update to the ones Panini has been doing for a few years. Up until this point, Panini has had a good design for the cards, but the pictures on the cards were always awful casual pictures of the players with their helmets off. Topps used the game photos with airbrushed uniforms, something I like a lot more, even though I am not a fan of the plastic helmet idea to begin with. We got a number of previews of other cards from this set, and for the most part, it looks pretty cool. I will most likely wait until the NFL branded stuff hits later in the year, but I may pick up a box or two prior just to check it out. On card autographs are always good, but its too bad that they cant use the college jerseys anymore.

Panini also previewed the Prestige rookies, now featuring NFL uniforms, and I think it is a million times better in terms of design than we have seen, well, ever. I think the base design is a winner, even though the rest of the set is the usual dog with fleas you would expect from Panini. As long as the autographs match the potential set by the design itself, I might be in for the first time in years.

Overall, I have serious questions about filling a calendar of 18 products and making everything unique. With Panini being infamous for hideous design, and boring cookie cutter products, this year will be a true test of their supposed “new direction.”

I sincerely hope we get to see more as the weekend proceeds, as I am going to need a lot to get me through the rest of this offseason. BRING ON THE ROOKIE PREMIERE!