Donruss Playoff brings Gridiron Gear Football back for its second season in 2006 with some of the same concepts from its debut along with others - like the popular Rookie Gems - that migrated from the company's past product lines. Collectors can look forward to pulling three memorabilia or autograph cards per box on average, along with several numbered rookie cards.
Boxes of Gridiron Gear contain 18 packs with five cards per pack.
Common Cards
The first 100 cards feature NFL veterans on a design that features metallic silver, team color and black stripes. It's a lot of stripes, and there's even more on the card backs. Visually, it's not Donruss Playoff's most attractive set of commons.
On the plus side, the company showed some imagination with player selection. Plenty of football card products have the same number of commons, and they almost always picture the same group of players. Gridiron Gear has a few odd choices (Scottie Vines, anyone?) but it's nice to see defensive stars like Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs on a base card in a set this size. Even kickers like Arizona's Neil Rackers and Cincy's Shayne Graham are included.
My review box held 84 of the 100 commons with no duplicates. There are also three levels of the X's parallels that originated in Playoff Honors a few years ago - Silver, Gold and Platinum. I pulled a Silver X's Ronnie Brown numbered to 250 and a Gold X's Darrell Jackson numbered to 100.
Rookie Cards
A total of 131 rookie cards made their way into Gridiron Gear this season. The first 100 (numbered to 599) have a design very similar to the common cards and are mostly lesser names, though a couple notable names like Colts running back Joseph Addai and Packers wide receiver Greg Jennings are in this group. My sample box had two rookies and a Gold X's parallel of Falcons cornerback Jimmy Williams, numbered to 100.
The final 31 rookies are the aforementioned Rookie Gridiron Gems, which have various memorabilia and autograph components. I found one of these cards in my review box, a Charlie Whitehurst numbered to 50 with two jersey swatches and a football swatch from the 2006 NFL Players Rookie Premiere.
Insert Cards
Gridiron Gear offers plenty of numbered inserts. Some focus on current NFL stars (Playbook), some on the stars of tomorrow (Next Generation) and others combine players from the past and present (Rivals, Player Timeline and Performers).
My box yielded only one regular insert, a Rivals card of Lawrence Taylor and Joe Theismann - a rivalry that ended in infamously painful fashion for the Redskins quarterback.
Memorabilia Cards
Fittingly for a product named Gridiron Gear, collectors have a chance to find game-used cards from a variety of NFL players. Most of the memorabilia comes in the form of partial parallels of the base set and the various insert sets. There's also an additional memorabilia insert, Plates and Patches, that showcases two prime jersey swatches from one of 14 current stars.
The About.com review box held a Player Timeline Combos card of Jaguars rookie sensation Maurice Jones-Drew. It's numbered to 100 and features a white game-worn swatch from one of his UCLA jerseys and a teal swatch from the Rookie Premiere photo shoot.
