I remember back in 2007, Certified was such a big deal that there were people lined up at my local shop to buy boxes. Over the last few years, Certified has become a complete joke of a product, a shell of its former popularity. Each year seems to get worse and worse, with Panini constantly tweaking things to seemingly make the product just above the line that people wont actually vocally laugh at. Last year was so bad that it landed on both the Black Friday and Father’s day list for this year, and it shouldnt be a surprise.

Here are some of the terrible cards from this product over the last few years:

2014 Panini Certified Teddy Bridgewater Auto Relic

2013 Panini Certified Eddie Lacy Auto Relic

2012 Panini Certified Andrew Luck Auto Relic

2014 Panini Certified Mike Evans New Generations Auto

This year’s design has literally put me at a loss for words when looking to describe how bad it is. I literally cannot even describe the laugh inducing results that Panini expects collectors to shell out their hard earned money for. The patch design is fucking busy as hell, with overlapping design elements, and out of place locations for the stickers and swatch. If you remember back as early as 2011, Certified was on card, and yet, here we are with more stickers.

The funniest part of this whole preview has to be the base autographs, where the Melvin Gordon easily looks to be surrounded by a bunch of lines that makes no sense. I would say the only thing missing from the design is “SPIDER MAN WUZ HERE” in giant Panini sized text. It really makes you wonder what the fuck is going through their heads in creating cards that look this bad. Its one thing to experiment, its another thing to just straight up make terrible looking cards.

Topps has already started previewing a bunch of different products from later on in the calendar, and we havent even gotten a look at Elite yet from Panini. There is a strategy that Hollywood uses with movies that will never go anywhere. They wait until the last possible moment to let critics screen the film, as to prevent the copious amount of horrible reviews from getting out. This is almost a very similar approach, as its clear that Panini doesnt have much confidence in their sets.

Again, Certified used to be something to look forward to. Since Panini has taken over the Leaf and Donruss brands, its become a laughing stock.