If there's a race to see which set of football cards will have the first official rookie cards, then Playoff Prestige has won it in 2007. Beating the first releases by Topps and Upper Deck to the market, Prestige has JaMarcus Russell, Brady Quinn, Adrian Peterson and the rest of this year's draft class on cards that are seeded in every pack.
Hobby boxes of 2007 Playoff Prestige Football come with 24 packs containing eight cards each. Collectors can expect two memorabilia or autograph cards in each box, and a parallel or insert card roughly every other pack.
Common Cards
A simple but effective design shows off 150 NFL veterans on Prestige's common cards. The photos are borderless on the top and sides, with a single bar at the bottom holding player and team information at the bottom. The Prestige logo is unobtrusive in the upper left corner.
Many players who switched teams in the off-season have a small transaction line above the information bar. Card backs are laid out horizontally and are colorful but don't contain tons of information.
A complete set of commons shouldn't be hard to come by, as a sample box provided by Donruss Playoff churned out 148 of 150 cards along with eight duplicates.
As in previous seasons, the parallel versions of the common cards are called Extra Points. In 2007, they come in five colors: Gold, Red (numbered to 100), Purple (#'d to 50), Green (#'d to 25) and Black (#'d to 10). I pulled two parallels - a Gold Shawne Merriman and a Red Kevin Jones - from the review box.
Rookie Cards
A full 40 percent of the base set is made up of first-year players, as 100 rookie cards appear in this year's product. The cards sport a design identical to the commons, with the exception of the word "rookie" in big letters atop the information bar.
Though the rookies are pictured in their college uniforms, the cards do contain full draft information, which is a nice touch that even some sets releasing later do not have. One minor gripe is that the players' positions do not appear anywhere on the card fronts or backs.
The rookie cards also have Extra Points parallels, plus their own parallel titled Draft Picks which is numbered to 999. Also, Donruss Playoff elected to continue a Prestige tradition and short print 10 of the 2007 rookies. Donruss Playoff confirmed this year's SPs are:
# 158 Kenny Irons
# 161 Darius Walker
# 169 Anthony Gonzalez
# 176 Jason Hill
# 189 Patrick Willis
# 211 Paul Williams
# 239 Jared Zabransky
# 240 Chris Leak
# 241 Jordan Palmer
# 242 Garrett Wolfe
I did not find any of the short-printed rookies in my review box, but I did pull 20 rookies plus duplicates of Calvin Johnson, Chris Houston, David Harris and Steve Breaston. The box also produced an Extra Points Gold parallel of Charles Johnson and Draft Picks parallels of Kenny Irons and Sidney Rice.
Autographed Cards
Prestige has several autograph possibilities, all of which are parallels to rookie or insert cards. The most well-known of these is Draft Picks Rights, a partial parallel to the 100 rookie cards that adds a signed sticker and is numbered to 250 or less.
This year, more rookie signatures are available through NFL Draft Signatures, a partial parallel to the NFL Draft inserts that are numbered to 100 or less. Autographs of veterans can be found on Prestigious Pros Signatures and Super Bowl Heroes Holo-Foil Signatures, both of which are parallel versions of insert sets.
Several of the memorabilia inserts also have autographed versions. The About.com review box contained no autographed cards of any kind.
Memorabilia Cards
Collectors can expect to pull two memorabilia cards per box, and Donruss Playoff has cooked up some new themes to go along with some returning favorites. Two of the most common inserts are Stars of the NFL Materials and Gridiron Heritage Materials, both of which feature some of the top players in the league and can be found in about every other box.
Prestigious Pros Materials has several different levels of game-worn jersey cards for 40 current NFL players; Prestigious Picks Materials does the same for 10 2007 rookies (including JaMarcus Russell and Brady Quinn) and has swatches of game-worn college jerseys.
Some of the coolest memorabilia inserts in Prestige have multiple swatches. Turning Pro Materials cards have one piece of a player's college jersey and one from the pros, while Changing Stripes Materials have pieces of two jerseys from players who have switched NFL teams during their careers. League Leaders Materials team up two or four players who are among the best at their respective positions.
As expected, I pulled two memorabilia cards from my review box: a Changing Stripes Materials Prime Keyshawn Johnson with multi-colored pieces of his Carolina Panthers and Dallas Cowboys jerseys and a Stars of the NFL Materials Chad Johnson with an orange swatch.