Card Of the Week 1/28/08

Last week's Card of the Week was a horrible New York Giants card, this week's is an awful New England Patriots card. Like the Tarkenton, it's from an oddball set. Like Fran himself, this quarterback went to multiple Super Bowls for a team other than the one on his card. And just like that beat up Topps Game card, this 1974 Wonder Bread Jim Plunkett card looks like absolute hell.

Plunkett's one of those great underrated quarterbacks everybody forgets about. Other QB's who led their teams to two or more Superbowl wins are venerated as Gods, but Plunkett is often an afterthought. Tom Brady has every paparazzi in the Western Hemisphere up his butt this week but Jim probably wouldn't get a second look from TMZ if he made love to Gisele Bündchen right on top of Bush's podium during the State of the Union address. I don't really understand it either, check out his stats and compare them to Hall of Fame über-Legend Joe Namath's and they compare very favorably. He's got one more ring than Joe too! Maybe he needs to hit on Suzy Kolber if he wants to get any love from the Hall of Fame voting committee. He'd probably have a better shot with Suzy than the voters but then again, Suzy looks like a much better kisser than Peter King or Len Pasquarelli. Dude's got a Heisman too, and he actually did something with it unlike many of this fellow winners.

Even if no one else reveres him, he was one of the first players I associated with "Super Bowl Winning Quarterback" so I've always been in awe of him even if his coaches weren't. How many times did this guy get benched anyway? Jim is a Patriot on this card as he was taken by them number one overall in 1971. He won the Rookie of the Year award that year but got killed by the Pats' terrible line and eventually lost his job to Steve Grogan. After a couple of lackluster seasons with the 49ers, he was cut and caught on with the Raiders as a backup. He didn't start until Raiders QB Dan Pastorini broke his leg in 1980. Jim took over the team, led Oakland to a Super Bowl championship, got benched for Marc Wilson, regained the job due to injury and led them to a Super Bowl win again. He's got more comebacks than Elvis. What's a guy gotta do to keep a starting job?

This Wonder Bread card is just beat to hell, but I love it. This is a great looking set with the bright border, bold team name and awesome photo of Jim looking bored and contemplating plunking the photographer with the ball if this photo shoot goes on any longer. The backs are cool too, with a large black & white photo of Jim showing how to throw the running pass. This card was pretty well loved (or hated as the case may be). It's slightly warped, there are creases all over the place and best of all, glue residue on the back. I don't often see cards with glue damage from the 70's. I could get a nice pristine copy of this card, but why? This one here has seen as much action as Jim.