I thought things were a changin’, I thought that Panini had finally made a push in the right directions by starting to avoid some of the major design problems that the last 2-3 years of their cards have had. Then I saw the preview for threads yesterday, and all of that promise and hope deflated like the soccer excitement in this country after Saturday.

On top of the fact that these cards look terrible to begin with, they have changed VERY little since 2009’s offerings. We still have the same design for the main rookie hits, and most of the subsets are so boring that I had to drink a red bull to stay awake while looking at them. That’s not the scary thing though, it gets much, much scarier.

Last year, National Treasures was a 400 dollar box of Threads to begin with, featuring the worst looking product since its inception in 2006. What used to look like aged relic of the past, instead looked like half the shit out of Threads, minus the foilboard. That will not ever fly with me, and if this set is any indication of things to come, we are looking at ANOTHER down year of National Treasures. I was hoping that Panini would learn that you cant just rehash every single part of previous sets and not expect people to notice, but I assume as soon as we get the Absolute Preview, its going to be more of the same ole shit.

This is where the consumers really need to speak up, but with a lack of licensed product from the company known for producing the best looking cards, they may not be able to have that luxury. Then when you consider that so far, Chrome and Flagship are the only products out of Topps’ lineup worth being excited for, it may be a full year’s worth of boredom on the horizon.

For shame Panini, for shame.