SP Rookie Edition makes its football debut for the 2008 season, and like its sister products in other sports, it features current rookies and retired legends on SP card designs from the mid-90s. A truckload of rookies on an all new design and two rookie autographs per box are the other big draws.
Boxes of 2008 SP Rookie Edition Football contain 14 eight-card packs. Expect to find multiple rookie cards and one 1993, 1994, 1995 or 1996 SP design rookie per pack.
Base Cards - New Design
Before we get to the retro cards, there are plenty of base cards on all new card designs. The first 100 cards are devoted to NFL veterans and utilize a horizontal layout with photos that are borderless on three sides. Card backs have a second photo and five seasons of stats.
The 50 rookie cards use a more traditional vertical layout and add more team colors and logos to the visual mix. These rate as some of the easier rookies to pull in any Upper Deck football set as I found 42 when I opened a random hobby box.
I also found 47 of the 100 veterans, along with three duplicates.
Base Cards - 1993, 1994, 1995 and 1996 SP Designs
Taking the base set to a whopping 400-plus cards are rookies and legends on cards that mimic four SP layouts from the 1990s. Retired players can be found on the 1993 SP design and the 1996 SP design, both of which are inserted 1:7 packs.
Fifty rookies are pictured on those two designs plus the two seasons in-between them at the following insertion rates: 1993 (1:2 packs), 1994 (1:4 packs), 1995 (1:8 packs) and 1996 (1:14 packs or 1:box). There are slight differences to the lists of rookies for each retro design, but the big name members of the class are present on all of them.
The interesting result of the way SP Rookie Edition is put together is that the rookies on the 2008 card design are considered the set's "official" rookie cards, but the retro cards are likely to have more secondary market value because they are much more rare - especially for 1995 and 1996.
In any case, my sample box produced the retro cards in almost exactly the advertised quantities. I found two legends on each design (including John Elway and Bruce Smith) and a total of 14 rookies: eight 1993, four 1994 and one each from 1995 and 1996.
Autographed Cards
SP Rookie Edition serves up two autographed cards per box, most of which are rookie signatures on the retro card designs. These include most, but not all of the rookies from each of the four seasons, and Upper Deck has announced that all autographs packed out live - no redemption cards.
The cards use clear stickers placed right over the player photos, which enhances the illusion that the cards are hard-signed but does make them a little difficult to read in some cases. The two autographs in my review box came from Titans running back Chris Johnson and Dolphins offensive lineman Jake Long, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 NFL Draft.
Autographed parallels of the legends are also in the mix but much harder to find at an insertion rate of 1:224 packs. Barry Sanders, Joe Namath and Bart Starr are just a few of the Hall of Famers who signed for the set.
The Last Word
Is 15 years enough time to feel nostalgic? For anyone who answers yes, there is a fun collecting challenge awaiting within SP Rookie Edition, and the seasons chosen from the 1990s really were instrumental in shaping the SP concept even if a few of the designs themselves aren't particularly memorable.
Other collectors may not appreciate the gimmick quite as much or find the product breakdown confusing. But it should be noted that SP Rookie Edition offers one of the more affordable ways to grab cards of the 2008 rookies - boxes should be under $70 - and one of the cheaper products to offer two rookie autographs per box.