Product Review: 2008 SPX Football

This is the first high end procuct to be released this year, and usually it does pretty good in terms of value. Despite what people said about last year's product, I think it did pretty good for design and overall appeal. As for this year, I actually had high expectations due to the sell sheet, but boy did that give me false hope. I saw an early case break today at a local shop during lunch, and I was shocked as to what I saw.

The Good

SPX is usually a product focused around the RC autos, as with most sets for the year, but I think that the subset autos are usually overlooked. This year's subset autos are BETTER looking than the base RC autos, and I think that if I were to buy singles from this set, I would go for these. The designs look more complete and there is no event used bullshit to get mixed up with. Its just the normal signature on holoview card stock, and I think they look great. This was pretty much the only good part about this entire product.

The Bad

Why in the world are there so many fucking "Winning Materials" jersey cards? Its every fucking card plus a billion due to parallels, die cuts, and other bullshit, which would lead me to be VERY angry if I pulled one of these pieces of crap. Each RC has 25-30 it seems, and then there are veterans, and of course, duals, triples, and quads. I would rather have a base RC card with nothing on it, than have to endure these fugly messes.

Another bad thing here is the fact that the stickers are so "rodixulus" in the way they look. Normally the stickers are clear and barely noticible, but the placement and film used for these ones make them the focus of the cards. I hated that, and it most definitely detracts from what the set is presenting to everyone.

The Ugly

First, is the price. Last year this sad excuse for a set jumped from 110 a box to close to 180, just so that they could put a hit in each pack. Please, spare me this shit-for-brains excuse to drive up prices. I would rather get three hits with an auto for 110, than 9 crappy hits with a crappy auto for 180. Its so beyond funny that people buy this crap because it was bad for the baseball set, it was bad in basketball, and yet they think it will be a good product for football? Yuck.

Whats uglier than the price is the way the box hits look. The cards look beyond awful, the stickers are out of place, and I still think its dumb to diecut SPX into the cards. Plus, who chose the green hologram cardstock? I dont think these could look any worse, oh wait, forgot about the pictures on the cards. Those are probably the worst of all. This all comes together with the fact that there were more duds at the rookie premiere than ever. So, with your 180 bucks, you could end up with a piece of crap that will never play a down.

Advice to wax breakers: Save your $180 and wait for Absolute. You WONT be disappointed.