Old School NFL packs

I picked up some cool cards the other day. I blog yesterday about the cool painted cards I got. Today I was going to show of the other cards that I bought. Most of them are "traditional" cards that just include photos, but some are sketchy drawn cards.


I'll start with the 1992 cards that I actually do know a little bit about.
Apparently their is a 30 card team subset detailing NFL broadcasters.

I checked around for checklists, but couldn't find any.

This is a pretty cool set of cards of broadcasters.


Some are obviously career broadcasters.


And others are former players turned broadcasters.




This card reminds me of when I actually liked this guy.

I think he's completely hard to follow and/or watch these days.

I still like Tom though.

Here's a shot of him in his playing days.



Sometimes I get the feeling that he's thinking to himself, "why am I teamed up with this idiot?"
"How is it that I can't break out and do some other show with somebody who can speak coherently?"



You can see him just nodding his head along hoping that "Boom" finishes up soon so that they call actually break down the game. I know Berman is just trying to set the scene up for us, but it's just unnecessary.



Speaking of unwatchable..


... He's not that bad though. Maybe it's because I haven't seen/heard him in a while so I've forgotten how he is as a broadcaster.


Some of the cards have pretty cool action shots.

I've always liked these types of shots because of the ball coming towards the camera. The look on Bradshaw's face is pretty cool too.
I like this guy as a broadcaster too. He's been around ever since I was a little kid.


Another "pack" of cards had Keith Jackson on the front.

He played tight end at OU. I only remember him for one play: it was an end around against Nebraska. That's right, we didn't know what to do with wideouts and tight ends except use them for blocking and running the ball. It would never occur to us to actually throw down field more than 4 to 5 times a game. I guess when you have 3 backs, a qb that can run and tight ends running the ball, you don't need to throw much.

He was a first round selection and 13 overall despite only having 62 career catches for 1,407 yards. It's still good for an average of 23.7 yards per catch. Still really good yardage.


Some other cool cards are this AFC Wild Card game card.



At first it took me a minute to figure out how they took this photo. I assumed they didn't have all the cameras on wires at that time. They're playing in the old Astrodome though. With ceilings to hang cameras from. Maybe they did have the cameras on the wire thing in 1991, I'm not sure. Pretty cool perspective.


A cool Packers team card.


I know it's an obvious joke, but they don't look like they're huddling up. They look like they've lost something on the ground.

That's it for now. I've got more on the way.

Best painted cards i've seen!

I came across these cool NFL cards when I went to the flea market this last Saturday. I try to make it a point to check out the flea market whenever I can.



Anyway, I picked up four "packs" of different sets of cards. They were cheap enough so I was just happy to at least get the card that was pictured on the front.
In this pack of cards the dude included cards 1-24.

They're detailing the first 24 years of Super Bowls. I'm guessing this is a subset from a bigger NFL set of cards, but I'm not sure.

If so, I'm wondering if they are all painted like this or they just had this subset as a painted set?



If it is a whole NFL painted set I'm going to try and collect that. Or at least see if the guy comes back next week and buy up as much as I can find.


I really like these painted cards, much better than anything I've seen recently.


It's going to be hard for me not to show off every card front to back in this post.

This card reminds me of in the old days when a quarterback would drop back to pass they really dropped back about 10-15 yards behind the line of scrimmage. Even in college now the QBs usually do a one step, three step drop and get rid of the ball. Sometimes they scramble or get flushed out of the pocket, but nothing like before when it was a design of the play for a quarterback to run backwards before letting go of the ball. I'm no great historian of NFL or football in general, but I'm guessing that Bill Walsh and 49's were one of the first teams to have significant changes in their passing game as well as different theories in pass blocking. If anybody has conflicting ideas on this let me know.



I think he's the first Native American QB or player in the NFL. He played college ball at Stanford. Hopefully my guy Bradford will do well in the NFL next year. What am I saying? Jim Thorpe played pro ball and is Native American Indian. I think maybe he's the first American Indian Heisman winner.





Is it just me, or does it seem like teams made more consecutive trips to super bowls back then? Maybe it's parity or salary cap stuff, I don't know. It just seems like random teams have a better chance to be a part of the big game.



In my opinion this is the worst looking card of the bunch. Mostly because of the way Randy White is placed on the bottom of the card. Not so much his position but they way the background looks. I wish they could've blended the backgrounds together better instead of that blocky looking background. This is the only dual MVP card in the bunch.


I love the detail in his hands and facial features.


Their are actual game photos on the back of the cards.


Immaculate Reception?




Pretty cool detail in the helmet. I didn't realize the Dolphins logo had those little lines outside the ring. I think they should have the dolphin tail obscured by the ring so it looks like he's jumping out at us.






All these Cowboys cards are making me hungry! Especially the Chuck Howley card. Pizza Hut used to have these posters of Dallas Cowboy players that they were giving away as part of a set. They were painted in the same style as these cards on a canvas like paper stock.

I found some in the attic this summer and my dad gave them away. I'm not much of a Cowboys fan, so it didn't matter much to me. Hopefully on my next trip to my parents I can see if I have any more laying around.




I guess by now you can tell that I'm going to upload every card in the subset.



Sort of works, doesn't it?




I didn't realize they would be this nice. I only picked them up because of this Bart Starr card on the front.

Another benefit of the painted cards is that when chipping does occur it just looks like the background is unfinished. I still can't tell if this card is chipped on the left edge or if that is just from the painting.

Doesn't matter anyway, I love these cards. They're going right into the binder. All this for only 25 cents is a pretty good deal.

Gift from Justin at Is this a Wasteland, no it's Tampa Bay sports

Justin, who runs the blog Is this a Wastland, no It's Tampa Bay Sports recently made an announcement about wanting to cull his collection of football cards and was going to give them away for free! Everybody loves free stuff, right? So I signed up for some Vikings cards.

As far as the NFL goes I love the NFC north the best. The Packers, Bears, Vikings are all fun to watch for different reasons. I root for the Packers mostly and I was really excited to see them win last week against the Bears. I especially loved the third down play for a touchdown. I love it when teams play action pass or just pass on third and one. Especially when it works. When it doesn't work I really hate them and their offensive coordinator. Ha Ha. I also love it more when they throw deep on that play. Totally unexpected in that situation.

The Bears have Tommy Harris from OU as well as a couple of other guys that I like to watch. (I really don't like Cutler). I like the Vikings for the obvious reason that A.D. plays for them. And the Lions, well every team needs a rest during a long season, and the recently the Lions have been that patsy...I mean team for the NFC North.

Anyway, on with the cards...


As you can tell from the photo, quite a generous stack of cards. This package was really heavy when I picked it up. Like a brick of cards.

I can't scan and show you all the cards, so I'm picking out the highlights.


Here is a nice card from a guy that I had forgotten about. Actually I haven't forgotten him completely, but I forgot he had been drafted a few years ago by the Vikings.

He was quite a star at OU, leading the team in tackles in '05 and '06. Those weren't very good years for us especially offensively, but with guys like Rufus we didn't have much of a drop off defensively after guys like Tommie Harris, Dan Cody and Dusty Dvorachek were drafted.


A few years ago during an ill-fated return to college I took a lot of journalism classes, and found myself more interested in print rather than broadcast media. I stopped by the newspaper offices and one of my friends was hanging out with Rufus. Really a nice guy. I never know what to say in those situations, I just try to treat them like any other person instead of some star.

He seemed completely different from his on-field persona. Seemed like a really quiet and educated person. I really was hoping he would make the cut with the Vikings, but injuries really screwed him up. Fans used to always yell out "roooooo" for Rufus after each tackle he made.


Looking through the stack of cards my eye usually finds the retro sets first and the shiny stuff later.


Michael Bennett from the 2005 Heritage.


These cards also have the backs that have trivia questions with answers that you can rub off. This always seems to be a football thing, I wonder if they've ever done this same thing for baseball cards?


Bowman Heritage of Fason. I remember this guy from his Florida Gator days. Love the horizontal card and the fact that he's looking straight into the camera.


2005 Heritage card of Culpepper. I always associate him with Randy Moss.



2005 Donruss Game Day Jerseys card. "The enclosed piece of Jersey was cut from an Authentic Jersey personally worn by Randy Moss in an official NFL Game. The authentic Game-Worn Jersey was obtained and is guaranteed by Donruss Playoff LP."

Cool. I wonder if "an Official NFL Game" could also mean a pre-season game as well? Doesn't really matter I guess, it's still game-worn.



Every time I hear "Randy Moss" I don't think about him as a receiver or even his off the field exploits like trying to run over a parking attendant. I always have this song lyric in my head. "the whole world loves it when you make that sound. wha wha. whawhawhawha." .... something about "flossing like Randy Moss." It might be Outkast, but I'm not sure. Catchy song.



Shiny card of Kelly Campbell. Currently with the Buccaneers.




A shiny Fason from 2005 Topps Finest.


2007 Score Chester Taylor



A 2004 Gus Frerotte. This guy played at Tulsa University. He was most known (at least to me) for being the guy that headbutted the goal post after throwing a touchdown pass. He was on the DL for the rest of the season. In the words of David Letterman, "a real bonehead."

Now for the grand finale.

Three awesome Peterson cards.



I almost bought a blaster of 2007 Topps football at Walmart on Friday. Mainly to see if I could get this exact card. Also, so that I could just have something to rip open. I chose a cereal box of 2009 Topps football instead. Still waiting to open that one. Nice card too, I don't even mind the Gatorade jug in the background. Actually the jug makes it better to me.



2007 Upper Deck NFL Players Rookie Premiere. It says on the back that despite injuries A.D. should be on the brink of stardom. I think that's been proven, even though the guys at Sports Illustrated are just now figuring that out. They have a pretty goodd story on Peterson this month about his production against the teams that drafted players ahead of him.


To finish off, a nice horizontal action shot of A.D.

Thanks again, Justin. And if anybody hasn't stopped by yet, check out his blog over at: Is this a Wastland, no It's Tampa Bay Sports. I'm putting together some sort of Orioles, Tampa Bay Rays card selection to send over to you soon.