Base Set
Sweet Spot's 2006 common card design is simple and colorful. An action photo of the player is set against a team color background with the team name across the top. The player's name and position are in the bottom right corner (in somewhat small type), with the team logo riding team color stripes emerging from the Sweet Spot logo in the bottom left corner.
The card backs contain mostly similar design elements, with a ghost version of the photo on the front and the same logo and stripe combo. Only 2005 stats are included, though there is a small paragraph hyping up each player.
No frills seems to be the idea behind the base set, with 100 commons featuring the usual mix of offensive skill players and defensive stars. It is nice to see updated cards for players who signed with new teams during the 2006 off-season (like a Cowboys card of Terrell Owens) as well as others who were traded early in the season (like Patriots wide receiver Doug Gabriel, pictured above). My sample box contained 46 of the 100 commons with no duplicates.
The next 100 cards in the base set are the Sweet Beginnings rookie cards, numbered to 699. My sample box yielded two: Donte Whitner (310/699) and Mike Hass (303/699).
Most of the top names of the 2006 rookie class are in the final part of the base set, the Sweet Spot Rookie Signatures. There are three tiers of these autographed rookie cards, with players like Reggie Bush and Vince Young in the top tier, numbered to 199 or 299. My rookie was Browns running back Jerome Harrison (625/899). All three tiers feature autographs on simulated helmet pieces.
Autographed Cards
The most prominent autographed inserts are the Sweet Spot Signatures with the helmet piece autos. They aren't numbered, and this year's group is a mix of rookies, veterans and legends, with most of the bigger names appearing as short prints.
My box held one of the least desirable names in this year's set, former Florida quarterback Ingle Martin. The Martin card also demonstrates one of the few drawbacks to the Sweet Spot Signatures design, which is the need to sign around the Packers helmet logo. Players already don't have much room to sign on the helmet pieces, so I imagine some signatures will look pretty cramped.
Another returning autographed set is the Sweet Leather Signatures, with players autographing actual pieces of football leather. These are very tough pulls this year, with single autos numbered to 20 and dual autos limited to just five copies each, and none were in my sample box.
Memorabilia Cards and Box Toppers
Sweet Spot usually doesn't have much of a memorabilia card component, and the 2006 set has only the Sweet Pairings Dual Jerseys, featuring two players with one game-worn jersey swatch each. I didn't find any in my sample box.
Full box buyers will also find a 5-by-7 inch Sweet Images card as a box topper. These oversized cards feature one of 25 NFL players (mine was deposed Cowboys quarterback Drew Bledsoe), and really lucky collectors will discover an autographed version, which makes for a nice bonus.
The Last Word
As long as collectors dig the Sweet Spot Signatures, this product will probably continue to be a staple of the middle portion of Upper Deck's football release schedule. It's a straightforward set, and like most products focused on autographs, the perceived value of a box depends mostly on which signatures you pull.
That being said, a box that costs under $100 and yields two numbered rookies, one autographed rookie and an additional signature card isn't a bad deal. Some changes are probably in store soon to keep the concept from becoming stale, but until then, Sweet Spot Football remains a solid if not spectacular set of football cards.