Here we go, the first NFL product of Panini’s new NFL exclusive license! Is it going to be good? Is it going to be valuable? What is it?
Hooray…… for….. SCORE? What the fuck?
Last week, Panini released a sell sheet for a product that in no way has been successful at all during its run in the NFL. Not only that, but like every goddamn product they make, many of the cards in the product will be NCAA focused. Funny enough, this is the type of thing that people should get used to. Because Panini has such high requirements to hit for the NFL, NFLPA, and NCAA, they are going to be forced into bringing back old shit bombs from previous years. They have yet to really build a reliable brand from scratch in football since, well National Treasures in 2006, and that isnt exactly the best track record for the team. Sure, they have Flawless, and Immaculate, but those are not native football products created by their staff
. Those are all fall back designs that were created by the basketball team. The football team has shit like Score.
There have been some bad Score cards over the last few years, check these out:
2015 Score Jameis Winston Red Zone Auto /20
2015 Score Hot Rookies Odell Beckham Auto Blue Foil
2013 Score Eddie Lacy 1989 Score Throwback Anniversary Auto
2012 Score Kirk Cousins Auto RC
2011 Score AJ Green Hot Rookies Auto
In all honesty, the base doesnt look bad. None of the cards, save the hilarious attempt at a Roethlisberger autograph and the Cam Newton eye sore, look terrible. The problem is that it wont matter in the slightest. They are going to crank up the presses to run at double speed, and this product will be 20 dollars a box by the time the season starts. Not only that, but it looks like the main autographs of the set are NCAA uniforms for second year players? That makes no fucking sense at all, and it shows that Panini has their heads so far up their own ass, that they are seeing what their products look like through the lining of their intestines.
Last year, Score was a 100% retail product and a bad one at that. The last time Score was a hobby product it was Hot Rookies, or what I named as one of the worst products of the modern era. The cards were printed as the Score brand, and then Panini went back and foil stamped the Hot Rookies logo over the existing cards. It was so haphazard that you can actually see the score logo that is under all that wonderful foil. Not only did it look terrible with its retouched shots of players on the bench
, but it was below dealer cost the second the artificial price controls were removed. I still laugh whenever I see someone post a break.
Get ready people, this is going to be a fun year for all of us people that see Panini for what they really are. Losers.
Who the hell sends paychecks to the designers of this garbage? You’d think the ability to be adept in something more that MS Paint would be a job requirement.
What would be Panini’s equivalent to Topps’ flagship football set? Is it Score? If that is the case, it is a sick joke.
Who thought it was a good idea to release this product before the draft? With trades, free agency, releases, etc., cards are somewhat dated as soon as they are printed, but this is awful! I bought a retail rack pack to give it a chance and pulled RG III in a Redskins jersey, Brock Osweiler in a Broncos jersey and a bunch of generic rookie cards.
I’m not trying to be a pessimist, but I’m not sure what the appeal of this product is supposed to be. Good or bad, Score has been around a long time. In my opinion, the brand deserved better than this nonsense.
Can anyone figure out what they’ve actually released? If you check out Beckett there are Score and Score Jumbo cards listed. At first I thought the jumbo were 5×7 in size like Topps oversized. But no it seems they are just cards that come from a ‘jumbo box’ where you get more cards in the box. So why are they listed as separate cards? There is zero difference between the cards except that they are numbered differently. For example, a Score gold zone is #’d to 50 but a Score Jumbo is #’d to 99, other than that there is NO difference between the cards, there is nothing that indicates ‘jumbo’. And for their ‘first down’ insert both the score and jumbo are #’d to 10? So how are possibly supposed to know whether you have a score or a score jumbo? I know this is only a problem for the completest, of which I am. If Beckett lists a score first down and a score jumbo first down then I need to have both cards but I’ll have no way of knowing I have one of each unless I collect all 20 cards, which is impossible. Ugh!