Classics is live, and from what we see in a case break on blowout, there are going to be some pretty disappointing results for this product if things hold true for the rest of the cases out there. Although there is a reported two autos per box and two jersey cards per box, the presence of veteran player autos and worthwhile rookies is looking small. That is definitely the bad news that no one wants to hear, but there is more bad news that comes along with it.

First, the floating swatches are back. Some of these cards are so obvious in the backwards design that I am left wondering if Panini just forgot to add the sticker to the card. See, because Panini has the same formula for every one of these sets, the parallels make no sense along the way. Instead of starting with the blank base card and moving forward, they start with the auto jersey and take things away until they get to the base card. What happens is that you are left with weird looking cards that have swatches in weird places. The obvious solutions would be to avoid the jersey cards all together and add another band of autos to the checklist, but we know that Panini is still all about keeping the simple jersey around for posterity’s sake. Another solution would be to start with a good looking base card and add the jersey, then add the auto to avoid the look like they are floating. I know it takes some elbow grease, and that isnt something the Panini design team may be used to using, but it needs to be done.

Lastly, they really needed to re-evaluate the autos in this set, as the stickers are not looking like they show up against the background and player. These cards are 150 million times better than last year, but they still make me want to jump face first onto a pile of forks when it comes to the overall presentation. It really makes me angry that they are so lackadazical when designing their cards, as it is blatantly obvious that these cards were made without any creativity or effort. Again, still MUCH MUCH better than last year, but it leaves massive amounts of potential on the table.

Overall, I am pretty disappointed with what I have seen, hopefully things get better as more of the product is opened.