PLAYOFFS... and Bowman

Falcons Vs. Cardinals.

Seriously, is there a more ridiculous playoff matchup ever? The team that has won exactly one playoff game since 1947 versus the one who has never had back to back winning seasons? I honestly have no idea who wins this game, The Falcons look good but the game is in Arizona. I guess we'll find out in about 15 minutes. To get me through the game I picked up a couple of packs of Bowman with Matt Ryan on the wrapper. I'm nit a big fan of Bowman this year, but I'm not sure if a Falcon has ever been the Poster Child for a football set before. I'll open one pack now and one at halftime.



103 Jason Witten
24 Matt Schaub
12 Derek Anderson

The imploding borders are kind of strange. They sort of remind me of 1998 Topps football, just with black borders instead of gold. The backs are ok, half the card is devoted to a scouting report which cuts the stats to one year and a career line. It's a bit odd to see the top and bottom borders white and the side borders black. I'm not sure why they did that. Pretty meh player selection among the vets. I guess Matt Shaub's trade to the Texans ended up getting the Falcons Matt Ryan in a roundabout way.

217 Jermichael Finley
210 Andre Caldwell
212 Eddie Royal
128 Justin King

Three vets, four rookies. I don't know who any of these people are and I don't feel like looking any of them up. I'm not sure how many rookies are in this set, probably too many. The design is exactly the same as the veteral cards, just with the typical Bowman motif of blue for the rookies instead of the red.

173 Gold Dennis Dixon

Here's the useless one per pack super thick gold parallel. I've heard of Dennis Dixon at least. I'm pretty sure there's a Duck fan out there who wants this card, I'll put it aside for him.

BC10 Antwaun Molden
BC3 Gosder Cherilus
BC48 Steve Johnson

I got three Chrome cards for some reason. A lucky accident or is Topps putting a bonus in the pack to make up for the no name rookies? I don't know who any of these people are and the game is about to start. Chris Collinsworth was just talking abotu Anquan Boldin as I was looking at Antwaun Molden's card. A bad omen for the Falcons? Maybe Schaub will counter the indirect Cardinals mojo. The kickoff is about to happen, I'll rip the second pack at halftime.

HALFTIME: Falcons 17, Cardinals 14

Considering the Falcons were awful in the first half, the'yr doing pretty good. No way Matt Ryan is a rookie. Sammy Baugh switched bodies with him like in Heaven Can Wait or something. Let's open that second pack. Igot this one from Target and the first from Wal-Mart. For unknown reasons, the Wal-Mart wrapper is mylar and the Target wrapper is white plastic. I've noticed that most wrappers at Target are like this, but I don't know why that is.

34 Marshawn Lynch
52 Michael Turner

Yes! Michael Turner! It's a sign, I tell ya! A sign! Turner's going to go off in the second half, just you wait. Only two vets in this pack, but they're better than the ones in the first pack. Since Manning won the MVP and Turner came in second, does that mean Turner is the NFC's MVP? I'm going to count it. MVP! MVP!

264 Terrell Thomas
273 Xavier Oman
169 Chad Henne
209 Jerome Simpson
120 Antwaun Molden

Xavier Oman is a great Scrabble name. You can always count for great names in football. Chad Henne was the guy I wanted The Falcons to pick in the second round after they picked up Dorsey instead of Ryan. Did I mention that I'm a dumbass? I've pulled two or three Simpson cards in abtou 10 packs of Masterpieces. Which is a big reason why I haven't bought any more Masterpieces. I got another Molden card, hooray.

161 Gold Brett Swan

AW CRAP. Falcons coughed it up and gave up a TD. #$%^!!

BC55 Pierre Garcon
BC52 Matt Slater

Two more rookies I know nothing about. Pierre Garcon is an interesting name at least. There's a checklist card in here too. it shows the Chrome cards mostly and it really pisses me off. All the good rookies are only found as a refractor parallel, while the regular Chrome has players I've never heard of. Great, so two cards in every pack are going to be nobodies guaranteed. The odds on an autograph in a retail pack is 1:395 packs. Nice! I guess Topps hamstrung this set so suckers would have to buy Bowman Chrome in order to get Chrome versions of all the decent rookie cards. Meh. This is the last pack of this that I buy.

Ok, let's see if the Falcons can come back again in this game...

FINAL: Cardinals 30, Falcons 24

Ugh. Well that sucked. I guess they didn't do too badly considering they were completely awful during the 1st and 3rd quarters. I guess we'll see if they can finally get back to back winning seasons in 2009. I'm not holding my breath.

So...... How 'bout them Hawks?

Super Bowl Cube Relic

I promised I'd show off the relic card I pulled from the Target five dollar football cube I opened during the Super Bowl and here it is:

1999 Playoff Absolute Tim Couch Team Tandems Jersey. Yaaaahoo! Oh but wait there's more:


Kevin Johnson on the flip side! That's why it's a Team Tandem card. Now, I've pulled relics from crappy Target repacks before, they are generally fairly common cards with nondescript little swatches from some minor star's jersey. I've never gotten one like this before. This is quite possibly the most spectacularly bad awesome relic card I've ever pulled. First of all, it's a card from the Golden years of Playoff, when they had cards that were thicker than some packs nowadays and were loaded down with foil. Plus the swatches are friggin' HUGE! Give this card to someone with some sewing skills and they could make a bikini out of this thing. Well, maybe not a top and bottom, but one of them at least. The card is shiny and foily and purple with enough jersey to make some sexy underwear, What more could you want?

Actually, some good players would be nice. To be fair, KJ had a decent enough career. 384 catches for 4595 yards in a 7 year career ain't that bad for a second rounder. He caught the first touchdown pass ever for the rebooted Cleveland Browns, so that's pretty cool. Tim Couch on the other hand, is the poster child for #1 overall pick disasters. Er, well at least he was the poster child. Guys like Chris Redman were starting in the NFL last year and Tim couldn't even get a job as a third stringer. Also, I'm not that much of an expert on football cards, but I'm pretty sure the late 90's Playoff jersey cards weren't actually game used. Don't quote me on that though and feel free to correct me in the comments if I'm wrong. It sure doesn't say Game Used anywhere on the card. It's an awesome looking card though, just one only a true Browns fan could love. I actually have a spectacular "hit" card much, much worse than this one though. If I can find it, I'll post it to Auto-matic later today.

So that's my beautiful dog of a relic card (heh, dawg. I made a pun) pulled from a cheapo repack box. On top of that, I still haven't opened the pack yet! This box keeps on giving and giving. What is your best terrible hit? Post it on your blog and I'll link it here. If you don't have a blog, describe it in the comments or send me a picture and I'll post it for you. Let's see those crappy hits!