When it comes to 2010 Licensed Football, Panini is pretty much it for the time being. If they are going to continue putting out stuff like Score, looking almost identical to 2009 Score, we are going to have a major problem here. I have always stood by the fact that exclusivity is a terrible thing that could lead to sweeping instances of uninspired junk and rehashed sets, but this, Prestige and Elite are taking it to a whole new level. Based on their first few previews, there has been little proof that the design team at Panini is taking their newfound exclusivity seriously. Prestige hasnt changed minus a few tweaks to the base design. Elite (Prestige Chrome) hasnt either. Score is pretty much a tweaked version of 2009 Score. Why the fuck arent they getting off their ass and earning the respect of the people who loved UD football with new designs and cool concepts? A revamped Prestige and a vastly different Elite would have definitely garnered excitement. Instead its the same old shit with different players. Those same auto Manu-patches, boring subsets, a million parallels of every card, rainbow foil, NOTHING IS FUCKING DIFFERENT. I am tired of this bullshit.

Truthfully, I am hoping for good things out of Panini Football this year, because otherwise Im stuck buying a complete slate of 2009 products instead. From what I have seen, things are not looking very good for my collecting in the foreseeable future. Also, if they continue to think that boring shit like Panini Platinum basketball converted for the NFL is going to fly with me, they are sadly mistaken. You cant just take Classics and redo it ten times for a full calendar and expect me to buy it. But, with an exclusive license (practically) I guess you dont need good shit anymore to be viable, all you need is cards for people to buy. Then again, that was the point I have been touting for the last few months anyways.

In fact, I am so certain that there will be nothing new, that I will make my predictions now. Absolute will have the exact same set up, the RPMs will have ZERO difference from 2007, 2008, and 2009, the Tools of the Trade will be back and looking like they were made for last year’s set, and the whole goddamn thing will be in foil. Classics will have a tweaked base design with a different background than 2009 (still just as terrible), the same subsets with a million parallels, and the school colors signatures will be done in paint pen despite the fact that it looks amateur. Limited will be a good set again, but not much will change other than the design of the rookie phenoms. The Threads letters will spread to other products because Panini cant think up anything else. When Threads actually comes out, the letters wont be any different, and the design will continue to puzzle just about everyone. Rookies and Stars will continue to look like it was created under a bridge while viewing murals spray painted on a wall. Gridiron Gear will continue to look like someone raided the stock background vault on Adobe Photoshop, and will still have hot boxes that 12 year olds will love to get thanks to the eight $2 jersey cards you get in them. National Treasures will be as visually disappointing as this years and will not go back to the way it was when we actually liked the concept. They will tout the on card autographs of the rookies, but the rest will still be stickers.

Total number of 2010 veteran on card autos? Zero. Total number of 2010 rookie on card autos? 3 subsets in different products. Total innovations or creative ideas? None. Total packs of 2010 product I will buy? Goose egg. Times I will rant about rehashed sets from them? Incalculable.