I’ve been sitting on this box of bowman football for a few weeks now and decided that I want to post the results.  Bowman football is something that I kind of like…and kind of don’t.  Just like the baseball set, they have loads of rookies and prospects for your prospecting desires, which I don’t typically desire.  I desire the Redskins players and rookies.  The last couple of years i’ve only picked up a few packs but decided a box was needing to be purchased for this season.  I’m chalking it up to my hangover excitement to the Redskins winning the NFC East last year…and having some nice draft picks.  Most of what i’m going to show are the guys from my favorite team, but if you are putting this set together, let me know and i may have some cards to complete your sets.

Card Design: 3 of 5

The card designs are nice and simple white bordered cards with all the typical info you’d expect on a nice piece of cardboard.

The backs are pretty simple as well.  You get stats from last season, where the guy was drafted and the school he received a degree from attended.  The vet players have a short write up under ‘The Next Coming:’ where they tell you how great this guy can be and how well he runs routes, or something.  They are often compared to another player, sort of a changing of the guard commentary on the player in hand.  The rookies on the other hand are titled ‘Next in Line:’ which makes sense, although pretty similar to the next coming.

At this point, i’m not really sure what line some of these guys should be in?  If you didn’t play much in your rookie season, would that make you the next in line or next coming?  I’m confused.

Photography: 2.5 of 5

I gotta knock the photos a little on this set.  The veteran cards are ok, but nearly every player is chopped off at the ankles again.

If you’ve read my previous box break posts and as someone who enjoys photography, you will know that this drives me insane.  Cropping in important and can be the difference in a good and a great photo.  These photos are just good.  Now, the reason why i’m knocking these guys down even more is the photography and weak photoshop work on the rookies.  Lots of airbrush work that created some soft imagery on the cards.

You would figure that if Topps can muscle their way in to being the only show in town for MLB, they could work some magic and get their NCAA license locked down to show the schools logos and proper colors.

Just a thought…

Hits: 4 of 5

The hits for this box were good, not great.  I did pull a very pretty TJ McDonald sparkle card of some sort that is significantly nicer than the weird looking scan.

I also pulled this sweet ass Alfred Morris.  This is more than likely, at least from what I can remember, the best Redskin hit i’ve ever pulled from a box of my own.  This card is a beauty in person and with it being numbered to 99, i am pretty happy with the pull.

There are minis, which aren’t really much of a hit, but this one was.

Bowman did do a great job of having some good second or third tier college guys put their autographs on cards.  With 5 autos in the box, i was quite happy…although some of my Cal friends probably won’t appreciate the two Stanfurd autos 🙂

 

Review

I jumped on the pre-sell of my jumbo box from Dave and Adams Cardworld pretty early on, so I didn’t have to pay the outrageous prices that the boxes inflated to.  I have no idea why these guys went up so high so quickly.  The rookie selection this year wasn’t nearly as great as last years was.  At least not now.  The overall look and feel of the cards was good, not great, but you really can’t go wrong with 5 autographs and a memorabilia card.  I really did love that I pulled a ton of Redskins too, don’t typically get them in the boxes I break.