The Football Card Blog

This card is for last week, since real life has suddenly started interfering with football card life even more lately (for instance, I started this post about 24 hours ago now). 

But the good news is, I actually get to take a vacation this week, and I think I will have my laptop with me to possibly blog from the road (although, just to be safe, I'm going to get next week's CotW locked and loaded before I leave).

This week, since all I've been talking about as of late is the 2007 Bowman Chrome Refractor set I'm putting together, that I would feature a card from the set.  So I was going through a stack last night, trying to decide who the lucky player was going to be, and finally settled on Paul Posluszny.

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Alright, I asked the question of whether I could stomach a Brett Favre Card of the Week earlier this week, and here's the answer:

Nope.

Now, keep in mind, it isn't because I don't respect what he did as a player (even though that involved beating up on my favorite team quite a bit).  But 1) I've already grown tired of the media coverage of the retirement, and 2) if I went Tommy Hodson over Tom Brady during Super Bowl week, why should I give it to Favre just because he's retiring with virtually every significant QB record?

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So, a week after missing one because I was sick, I really don't have an excuse for missing last week's.  I guess I just didn't have anything in mind, and was experiencing my annual winter lull in football interest.  But today marks the official start of the new NFL season, so we're back at it.

Thought I'd go this week with another former NFL player who's been in the news--this time, former ESPN NFL Analyst Sean Salisbury.  Emphasis on the former, thankfully.

Salisbury was let go this past week by the powers that be in Bristol, after they brought in Cris Carter after HBO cancelled Inside the NFL.  Salisbury has tried to make the parting sound mutual, but we're not buying it.

Salisbury reportedly wanted a seven figure salary from the Worldwide Leader, despite recently calling respected NFL Analyst/Reporter John Clayton 'Cryptkeeper' on air, and being suspended in 2006 for showing off pictures of his "Salisbury Steak" to numerous women (thanks to the Deadspin commenters for that nickname).

Salisbury's statement read in part:

"I have grown as much as I can at ESPN and decided to expand my horizons. I have created a brand and it's time to expand into other opportunities in TV, radio, Internet, publishing, movies and public speaking, among others. My resume speaks for itself as a football analyst, and I believe I can talk all sports with the best of them."

This, from the guy who compared having his high school retire his No. 12 football jersey retired to being "...like John Elway, Marcus Allen, Larry Bird or Magic Johnson."

Yep, that bit on Battlebots, combined with a few years on the network that has become completely irrelevant to sports, and a horrible appearance in The Benchwarmers (a surprisingly funny movie, even with Salisbury) sure do speak for themselves.

Enough bashing of Salisbury--that I've spent this much time is a little disturbing.  The card above is his 1996 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Update card, #U141 in the set, booking at a whopping $0.10.  I have no idea where or when I got it, but I pulled it out specifically because at some point I figured I'd do a run of Cards of the Week that were of NFL Analysts/Announcers from their playing days.  And now, he hopefully won't make that list.

Hopefully I'll be back a little more regularly around here in the coming weeks.

And one more little fun jab at Salisbury on the way out--at a Vikings game in my youth, I was sitting in some seats that were amazingly close to the field, but also in front of an ancient season ticket holder who didn't care for our standing and cheering.  At all.  Well, at one point, and honestly I don't remember if Salisbury was playing and actually doing well (unlikely) or if it was the days of calling for him to replace Rich Gannon, but the old lady behind us kept yelling in her raspy voice for "Shane."  So that's my real lasting memory of the guy--Shane Salisbury, backup Viking QB.

Sorry for the delay in this week's Card of the Week--had some computer issues this week.  I was going to try to find an approporiate Pro Bowl card this week, but none of my 1990 Pro Set cards really impressed me, and the only "cool" Pro Bowl card I had that I could think of was a recent Steve Hutchinson jersey card that I picked up on eBay for some reason.

But, as I was stumbling my way across the Interweb, I landed on an article about former Houston Oilers linebacker John Grimsley, who unfortunately was killed this week, apparently while cleaning his own gun.

Since I thought I vaguely remembered Grimsley's playing days, I took a quick peak on Beckett to see how many cards of him existed, and lo and behold, his rookie card was from the 1987 Topps set, which happened to be a set that I collected in my youth (and also a set that I bought a box of on eBay for old times sake last year).

So, I dug out one of my boxes that had some 1987 cards, and sure enough, in the first batch I pulled out, there was a Grimsley rookie card.  It won't ever win any awards for being the prettiest card, or most valuable card (it books at $0.10 I believe), but a card related to a story about an interesting guy who had a decent career (including a Pro Bowl appearance), and managed to live his life after football enjoying what he did, and not getting in trouble with the law, or anything like that--something I wish would get publicized more for former NFL players (and I imagine the NFL wouldn't mind either).

"How on earth does Tommy Hodson get to be the Card of the Week?" I hear you ask?

Fair question.  Based on last week's Eli Manning Card, I was going to do a Tom Brady card this week.  But, as I started to put this week's together, I realized a couple things:

1. 1) Tom Brady is already getting enough publicity this week.

2) I really don't have any cool, unique Tom Brady cards.  The closest thing I have would probably be the 2000 Topps rookie card of him, which is really only unique because it doesn't really exist (it's actually a 2005 Topps Throwback Promo).

So, with that in mind, I set forth on a different angle.  I figured I'd go with a card of the player who's really responsible for the Patriots run of recent Super Bowl success--Drew Bledsoe (although, to be fair, many people would say it was actually Mo Lewis who is responsible).

And, since I've always liked the Patriots older uniforms (featuring Pat the Patriot) better than the new ones (although it doesn't come anywhere near to being as cool as my favorite all time uniform--the original Tampa Bay Buccanears), and I vaguely recall seeing a card with Bledsoe wearing the throwback uniform, I figured I'd dig for that. [Sidenote: How cool would it be if the Patriots came out of the tunnel on Sunday for The Big Game wearing their old uniforms?  I might actually cheer for them, then.]

Of course, being a bit lazy, and not really wanting to look for a needle in a haystack, I decided that maybe I would be open to alternative Patriot QBs, as long as they were in their Pat the Patriot uniforms.  And that is how Tommy Hodson becomes the Card of the Week.

To be honest, I hadn't even heard of Tommy Hodson before I found the card, and was quite shocked to find out that he not only started a handful of games for the Patriots in the early 90's, but that he was quite the quarterback in college as well, becoming the first SEC quarterback to throw for 8,000 yards and 60 touchdowns in his career.  Even more surprising was that Beckett actually shows 39 cards of Hodson, including his LSU Police cards--including a 1992 Pro Line Portraits Autograph card, which books for a whopping $8 (possibly more than the rest of his cards put together--the '91 Upper Deck books for $0.01-$0.05).

And, of course, by my twisted Bledsoe logic, Hodson played a role in the Patriots success as well--if he hadn't played so poorly during his stint in New England, the Patriots wouldn't have turned to Hugh Millen (and Scott Zolack, and Jeff Carlson) in 1991-92, which led to the Patriots finishing 2-14 in 1992, which led to the Patriots getting the first overall pick in the 1993 draft, which they used to select Drew Bledsoe...

And the rest, as they say, is history. 

I realized tonight that I didn't really have to do this card until next Friday, as there is still another week to go before the Super Bowl, but I had it all lined up, so I'll figure something else out next week.  Maybe I'll find a cool Patriots card or something.

But the card of the week this week is a 2007 Leaf Certified Materials Eli Manning Fabric of the Game Team Logo card.  The Card has a nice two color red and blue patch, with the cutout shaped like the Giants' "NY" logo (hence the "Team Logo" part of the name).

I'm not a huge Eli Manning fan--haven't been since he forced his way to New York--but you do have to admire the job he's done in leading his team to the Super Bowl, even if he's getting a lot of help from the running game and defense along the way.

The card is serial numbered 12 out of 25 made, and according to Beckett books at $20.  I pulled the card from a pack myself, in the first pack of the third box of Leaf Certified Materials I busted this year--a box I happened to win at my local card shop. 

Other big pulls from that particular box included a Dan Marino Fabric of the Game Prime (#24/25), Brandon Marshall Mirror Gold Materials with a three color patch (#18/25), and a Vernon Davis Certified Potential Materials Prime (#1/5).

The other Fabric of the Game cards I pulled in 2007 include a Jack Lambert Prime (#15/25), and Carnell Williams NFL Die Cut (#14/25).

Overall I'd say that this set was one of my favorites of the year, especially for a set I wasn't expecting to collect going into the year.  It definitely will make my list in 2008.

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