One Dollar and Five Cents Pt. III: QB Carousel

Posted by cardboard hogs on May 7, 2013

I stopped by Marv’s table over the weekend to go through his nickel box of football cards and ended up buying 100 cards for a whopping $4. Thanks for the deal Marv!

As I was going through the cards, i kept pulling QB’s and thinking to myself…’what in the hell is going on here!’ I’ve seen the charts and understand the numbers of QB’s that the Redskins have had since their last Super Bowl winning QB, Mark Rypien…but DAMN! To see it through a card collector’s eyes was a little overwhelming and as a fan, quite disappointing. It’s no wonder why the Redskins have had so little success in the past 20+ seasons. I realize it doesn’t begin and end with the QB, but that’s one major part of the ‘Why’.

Here’s one group starting with Rypien. Shuler…ugghhh…and Frerotte. Gus actually had a pretty good NFL career and saw some success with the Minnesota Vikings as well as the Redskins. Just not enough to be a franchise QB

The next group included Brad Johnson. He had varying degrees of success before and after his Redskins career and nearly got the Redskins to the NFC Championship game in 1999…but not close enough. Jeff George was a freaking disaster and appeared visibly unaffected by his inability to complete a pass to one of his teammates. Todd Husak…i don’t even remember him…

Now for the really dark days. Sage Rosenfels never got a start for the Redskins and i’m not sure if he had any games played in the NFL and I don’t really care to look it up. Patrick Ramsey. The poor kid. I was really excited when the Redskins drafted him and thought he could be a franchise QB…unfortunately, the team around him, especially the O Line was terrible and he got knocked around like a punching bag which hindered his career as it would anyone. Tim Hasselbeck. The thing i know about him is that he’s one of the generalist talking heads at ESPN and his wife is quite obnoxious, although cute, but still obnoxious.

Brighter days are ahead with this next group. Brunell led the Redskins to the playoffs in 2005, well not really because he was terrible and could barely complete a pass. That team made the playoff because of the defense and the running of Clinton Portis. Insert Jason Campbell. I really, really thought he would be the guy and was extremely excited about him starting at QB. But, similar to Ramsey, he was in a very unstable environment which ended up stunting his growth. You can’t expect a guy to learn a new offense every season of his career and have any ounce of success. He has bounced around the past few years and never really gotten a fair shot a starting job. I’m hoping he can be the guy in Cleveland this year. The Browns have done a great job of rebuilding their franchise and I think he can perform better than Weeden at this point. Palmer…that’s it.

Here is a list of the men that have taken a snap from center since Mark Rypien was injured and eventually released from the Redskins in 1994.

Rich Gannon – 4 games

Cary Conklin – 2 games

Heath Shuler – 13 games

John Friesz – 4 games

Gus Frerotte – 49 games

Jeff Hostetler – 3 games

Trent Green – 14 games

Brad Johnson – 27 games

Jeff George – 7 games

Tony Banks – 14 games

Shane Matthews – 7 games

Patrick Ramsey – 24 games

Danny Wuerffel – 4 games

Tim Hasselbeck – 5 games

Mark Brunell – 33 games

Jason Campbell – 52 games

Todd Collins – 3 games

Donovan McNabb – 13 games

Rex Grossman – 16 games

John Beck – 3 games

RG3 – 15 games

Kirk Cousins – 1 game

That’s 20 QB’s that have bridged the gap between Rypien and Griffin. This hopefully makes it clear why us Redskins fans are so overly infatuated with Robert Griffin III. He’s brought some stability to a very unstable position…now, if he can stay healthy…but, if he can’t? I will take my chances with Kirk Cousins…or at least welcome a first rounder or two for Captain Kirk next season.

One Dollar and Five Cents Pt. II

Posted by cardboard hogs on March 31, 2013

In continuation with last weeks post from the Cedar Hills Show, here are a few other cards pulled from the nickel and dollar boxes. My back is finally at it’s full strength from being hunched over the boxes, so all is good…just need to work on the neck strain thing and i will be 100%, taking it day to day.

The Redskins in the late 90’s were pretty much a directionless team led by Norv Turner and a carousel of stop gap quarterbacks. The one constant for a couple years was Stephen Davis. A pretty powerful back in his day and a guy that i loved watching run. I’ve been collecting his cards for a while now and love it when i come across a few cards i’ve never seen before. This is around the time when i wasn’t collecting and they came from the nickel box.

When the Redskins drafted Malcolm Kelly, i was really excited about his potential and thought he would be a phenomenal compliment to Moss. Unfortunately for the kid, he had Greg Oden’s knees and never really got on the field. Jimmy Zorn the Zornado loved him though and they kept him around longer than they should have. I don’t think he is playing anymore, which really sucks for him. These types of stories are a dime a dozen for young athletes. I just hope he has his money right and is a productive member of his community. Love the Diamond background on Santana, he owns the game.

Three years ago, this guy was traded to the Redskins and they got worked by their divisional rival Eagles on the deal. The Shanahans thought they were just a QB away and that McNabb was that QB. I guess the best part about McNabb being terrible as a Redskin was that it lead to Rex Grossman being the QB which led to John Beck being on the roster which led to the Redskins having two guys that shouldn’t be starting in the NFL which led to a terrible season, which finally led to RG3 coming to DC. Life as a Redskin fan looks brighter, assuming of course, RG3 doesn’t also have Greg Oden’s knees.

Jason Campbell, i feel terrible for this guy and think he could have had a solid career if he didn’t play for such a terrible organization. He’s with the Browns right now, which is basically the equivelant of bottoming out in the NFL (sorry Browns fans). I still love Campbell and hope he becomes the starter and does great things in Cleveland this year.

Art Monk, one of my all time favorite Redskins and Michael Westbrook, one of my least favorite. I’m going to refrain from talking too much shit about Westbrook as he can easily kick my ass. I do love the short shorts though, nothing weird about that at all. How about that strategically placed photo with football in the upper right…whattajob Topps, you are indeed the finest.

Last up Darrell Green. The man and the Legend along with Rice. Another legend…no Randy Moss though?

Free Cards!

Posted by cardboard hogs on February 10, 2013

Hey kids, i just scored some free cards! Ain’t life GRAND!

One of the great things about Dave and Adam’s card world is the free stuff they send when you order from them, love it.

With my jumbo ’13 Topps box and presell Heritage stuff, i got four blaster boxes of 2011 Rookies and Stars. I bought a few of these cards last year and wasn’t too impressed with them, but hey, free is free. I was hoping to pull some Redskin inserts i don’t have yet…didn’t really happen, but managed to get a couple cards i didn’t have for my team sets. Also pulled a couple jersey rookie cards and some weird ass burnt orange or red or whatever color it is, I had no idea these were a thing.. Can’t be too rare as i got 4 of them in the 4 boxes. All in all, not a bad group of cards. Most of them will end up getting sorted and put away in boxes, never to be seen again until i can trade them or find some time to post them on the ebay.

Here is the notable haul for your viewing pleasure.

The Redskin collective. Funny thing about these cards is that they all came in the same box along with the Hankerson (below). Can you feel the heartache in the face of Aldrick Robinson and his photoshopped jersey, the kid looks befuddled! I needed this card, so i feel good about it, just not comfortable with his look on this one. The other card i didn’t have was the McNabb card. The reason i didn’t have it was because i refused to purchase it on a few occasions. I liked McNabb as an Eagles QB, played well but never great. So when he was traded to the Redskins a couple years ago, i about shit a brick…sideways. This old crapper is coming to play for my team? Seriously? Luckily he played poorly from the get go, so there were no long term plans to keep him around…AND it opened the phenomenal RGVIII phase, that’s Rex Grossman, number 8. That’s a whole ‘nother other post.

Here is the Hankerson card. I wish this guy would get rid of the alligator arms, could be a great receiver for years to come for the Redskins.

So, i was speaking to my wife and apparently these cards look gold to her. Burnt orange, Red, gold…don’t really care. They are just odd to me, especially the way Best and Breaston are slowly bursting out of the faded edges. Nothing much else to say. I may do more research to get an idea of print run on these or who they were meant for (target, wal mart…) or not. They are what they are.

The next group is the shiny and somewhat glossy Longevity cards. I think these are a much better parallel than the gold aura gems from above. Panini managed to do some killer super font type branding on these guys, but I think it works nicely here. They are numbered to 249, so that’s good. The two QB’s are marginal at best, so I don’t expect these guys to skyrocket in price. If there’s a Texans fan out there, I got a card for you!

Last up are the jersey cards. I have somewhat of an affinity for really thick cards. Their nice and hearty plus they always have a different sound to them. Almost a little hollow sounding…or tinny? Not sure. Both guys are WR’s and were rookies as the name of the set would suggest. I know Greg Little has shown some flashes of brilliance, but it’s been tempered by McCoy and Weeden’s ability to get him the ball. The back of the card mentions his fanatical attraction to Anquan Boldin and Andre Johnson, which is great because they are both fantastic WR’s…not sure if Little can get to their level, but he’s still young. He is also wearing double zero, which is not good for binary coding…gotta think he could have picked some number, any number and would have been ok, right?

The other guy is just that…the other guy. I think i heard of him on last season’s hard knocks, but don’t really remember. His cut jersey is a little nicer and he appears to have numerous tattoos. When are they going to come out with tattoo cards? They could call be rip cards called tear for tats or something more witty than that.

that’s all i have for now. I have a couple more box reviews i want to do and should get another few posts in soon, hope you are reading whomever you are.

enjoy. -HTTR!