Category Archives: gridiron gear

Giridiron Gear Is Live, Ugly

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Back in 2006, I discovered Gridiron Gear as a cool set with cards that featured rookie patches and autos for a great price. The design was very cool, everything fit well, and I was more than excited to see that Laurence Maroney and a few of the other targets I had were being featured on some of the coolest cards around.
When 2007 Gridiron Gear was released, there were a ton of people who were touting it as one of the best looking products of the year. I was one of those people. The cards looked great, the subsets were fresh, and the Gridiron Gems looked top of the line. A Simple, white background, as well as nice placement of the swatches, all combined to make a great looking card. It was a build on the 2006 set that I was collecting, but looked even better with the clear sticker.
Then 2008 rolled around, and the design trends that are running rampant through Panini’s product lines today, started to show up and become the rule instead of the exception. Busy backgrounds, oddly placed swatches that broke the border of the card, and a complete disregard for the elements that made 2007 great. I didnt even buy a single pack out of protest.
Now we are getting 2009 Gridiron Gear, and again, the set is going in the wrong direction. Floating swatches are back, though this time they are shaped weirdly and dont really fit. The background is still busy, and looks like a giant pac-man eating the windows. The player is again covered up by the relics, and nothing really looks right. When you look back at how cool 2006 and 2007 was, this is an abomination.
Really, this is only one part of the set, but the other parts are just rehashes. Plastic helmets are back, player timelines are back, and Gridiron Gear continues its slide. The set is filled with ugly cards, and I am disappointed that once again, I am prevented from collecting one of my favorite sets because the cards were Panini-nized.
Oh, and I almost forgot – MORE FUCKING REDEMPTIONS FOR STICKER AUTOS OF PLAYERS AT THE ROOKIE PREMIERE!

First Look: 2009 Donruss Gridiron Gear Football

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In 2007, Gridiron Gear was one of my favorite sets of the year, but in 2008, it dropped well below acceptable standards to me. The continued use of event used footballs, as well as a RC Patch auto design that didnt lend well to parallels sold the product down the river to me.

I see a lot of 2008’s product in 2009’s preview, which concerns me, in addition to ANOTHER Donini set with sticker autos, despite a focus on hard signed products elsewhere. Gridiron Gear is like SPA and Limited is like Ultimate in terms of the release calendar, and both are at a disadvantage to UDs sets before a preview is even released. See, I love UD products because they are the best, its not even a contest, especially when Donini continually falls short of product expectations.

Ill give you an example.

Instead of retiring lame gimmicks like signed plastic NFL fields, and cards with rubber helmets embedded in them, they are issued as a staple in the product. I cant tell you how bored I am with these cards, even when they were created in 2007, and it makes me really frustated to think how lazy the Donini designers are. Why not focus on the design of the Gridiron Gems to ASSURE that every parallel fits into the design. It didnt last year, and from the preview of the sanchez here, this year’s is the same. Look at the tapering of the window in relation to the design. It looks off, because the card was actually designed for the other parallels. This fact, in turn, makes the window look like it is breaking through the borders of the card.

Here is the reality I see in Donini cards for 2009. Who ever is designing them was just given the old set and adobe photoshop and told to reinvent. Rather than starting from scratch as UD and Topps usually do, they just tweak little parts of the old cards. Im guessing its because of a lack of talent/lack of knowhow in the designers’ repetoir, but it could just be that they have no resources – hence all the stickers.

As I said in my UD bias post, I give them more positive press because they are just better at making cards. Donini and Topps are second tier when you hold up the calendar against each other. Sadly, the second tier is second class in this case. Ill take SPA and Ultimate over Limited and Gridiron Gear every day of the week.