Well, even with a historically popular rookie class in Football, and a pretty solid class in Basketball, and Panini still has to clear all those products off dealer shelves by making shops order their shitty products rotting in the warehouse. To do so, the Black Friday giveaway is back for another year, even though content seems to be reduced again for the umpteenth year in a row. Collectors, for some god forsaken reason, feel like these garbage packs are worth buying the crap they wouldnt normally buy, and that’s why this still happens.

Here are some of the okay looking cards:

2016 Black Friday Eli Manning Base Auto

2016 Black Friday Richard Sherman Base Auto

These on the other hand, make me want to claw my eyes out with dirty fingernails:

2016 Black Friday Ezekiel Elliott Santa Hat Relic /10

2016 Black Friday Aaron Rodgers Manu-patch Logo

2016 Black Friday Kenyan Drake RC Auto

The packs are up early, as they always are, and like we see most years, the cards range from looking meh to looking like OH MY GOD KILL IT WITH WHITE HOT FIRE bad. Some of these cards look so fucking hideous that I dont even think I would want them out of free packs. That’s how bad this gets.

There are some redeeming qualities, as the Super Bowl cards always look good, and some of the base veterans arent horrible. That being said, the rest of the content isnt worth even THINKING about buying random crap to get the packs.

A word of warning – DO NOT BUY BLACK FRIDAY PACKS ON EBAY. They are easily searched and easily separated so that every hit is taken out.

Overall, you will see Panini pimp this giveaway like its the best thing from sliced bread. You will see shops try to justify the cost of taking on excess garbage when they already have a stock to begin with. None of that should need to happen. If products were built and printed the way they should be, these types of programs wouldnt be forced by dealers sitting on heaps of trash they cant move.

Just say no to Black Friday, and dont force your shop to participate. Buy product that deserves to be bought, and try to get them to use their voice to explain to Panini that overprinting the worst products of the year cannot be a method if shops are expected to continue buying new wax.