First Review: 2007 Press Pass Football

4/19/2007 2:30:04 PM

The NFL Draft is still more than a week away, but the editors of Beckett Football got a sneak peak at 2007 Press Pass, due out next Wednesday. Here's what we pulled and what we think about the first football card product of 2007:

2007 Press Pass

What We Pulled:

Packs per box: 28

Cards per pack: 4

Cards per box: 112

Base set completion w/o SPs: 95 percent (95 of 100)

Duplicates: 0

Our Box

Our biggest hit was a Brady Quinn Gridiron Gamers jersey card (#’d to 100). These fall 1:2.5 boxes. Each box delivers an average of four autographs. We pulled three Bronze level (Joel Filani, Dwayne Wright and Quentin Moses) and one Gold level (Drew Stanton #’d to 100). The short-printed Power Pick subset returns with five players. We got Ted Ginn Jr. and JaMarcus Russell.

The Primetime Players insert falls seven per box. We pulled Brady Quinn, Troy Smith, Brandon Jackson, Marshawn Lynch, Dwayne Jarrett, Calvin Johnson, Sidney Rice. The base set is totally revamped for 2007. We also pulled two Reflector parallels, including one Proof Edition.

What We Think

The first thing we noticed about Press Pass was the revamped base set. Instead of a 50-card set and a bunch of duplicates per box, there are 105 cards that breakdown into seven sub sets. The sets include 50 regular cards, 17 NCAA Leaders, seven Trophy Club cards, 13 All-Americans, 10 Teammates, three Sophomore Sensations and five Power Picks. It’s a cool way to get more themed sets of the top rookies without getting stuck with a bunch of dupes.

The Primetime Players inserts have a cool 3D-type school logo in the background that really ties in nicely with the schools. The autograph set design is once again clean and attractive. The on-card autographs are always some of the best looking signatures ever year. Two notable names that don’t have autographs in the product are Marshawn Lynch and Dwayne Jarrett, although they do appear in other sets.

Other autograph sets include dual Teammates Autographs, Power Pick Autographs and Sophomore Sensational Autographs, including Vince Young, Reggie Bush and Joseph Addai. Although we did not pull any, Press Pass again had most of the rookies sign random nickname and inscriptions with their autographs.

Press Pass scored big with the game-used college jerseys this year. The company acquired jerseys of Brady Quinn, JaMarcus Russell, Kenny Irons, Dwayne Bowe, Ted Ginn Jr., Steve Smith and Adrian Peterson, although his first jersey cards won’t appear until Press Pass SE in early May.