First off, last year’s finest was bad, REALLY BAD. The parallels were pastel shades of pink and blue, and really didnt make sense. They put manufactured NFL logo shields into auto cards for no reason. Lastly, they said a ton of shit was going to be numbered, and it wasnt at all. Yes, they offered to fix it, but thats not the point. Basically, the point is, for Topps Finest 2008, there was let down after let down for the set.

This year, like last year, looks promising from the original images that were leaked. They have a patch auto parallel, they have good looking base cards that dont look like pink film strips, and it looks like things may finally be back to the form we were used to from pre 2005.

However, this is a Topps product that just barely breaks the golden rule of Topps football cards. Last year, 2007, 2006, and 2005 were pretty much design diarrhea, but for 2009, it shows promise.

That doesnt mean im not holding my breath for the coming Topps Finest apocalypse. I have that feeling, deep down inside that they will find some way to fuck it up beyond belief. I mean, they are using the foil stickers, as usual, and the rainbow foil seems to be making a return for a second year. Lets hope they realize that colored parallels only work when they are done in a chrome product that costs 80 dollars less per box.

As with any higher end product, parallels usually have no place unless there is something extremely differentiated between the cards. Colors dont cut it for a product that costs this much, especially when they have a scheme equal to a box of lucky charms.