Cardboard OCD Special - Split It, Don't Rip It

I was fortunate enough to pull a Rip Card out of one box of 2021 Allen & Ginter last week.  I could never leave the inner contents unrevealed, but how to preserve the outer card and still get to the mini inside?  Watch and learn!

I've never believed in destroying cards if they are in presentable shape, even if they're 1990 Donruss or something.  And with Rip cards, I figure there has to be a way to get the mini out of the middle without tearing up the outside card.  These are thick enough that you should be able to slice the edges and keep the outer card whole, right?  But how to keep the blade aligned?

So I found that an old Donruss puzzle piece is about half the thickness of a Rip card.  This should make a good base.

• Lay both the Rip card and the puzzle card on a flat surface. 
• Place a razor blade on the puzzle card so the end only protrudes about half an inch or less.  You don't want to cut any farther into the Rip card than you have to.  
• Push the Rip card up against the puzzle card.  
• Hold down the blade firmly in one hand while guiding the Rip card along the edge - sorta like running a board through a table saw. 

• Repeat for the two short edges

This should split the Rip card enough to get to the mini inside.

 And your Rip card is still in presentable condition!

I got a metal Manny Machado in mine.  (Say that 3x fast).  There are apparently only three of each metal mini.  It's the Mini Exclusives Extended Metal #386. 

Here's a better look at the finish on the metal. 

Backs are white.

Anyway, hope that helps you preserve your Rip cards and not slice up your fingers!

A Whole Lotta Nothin'

Not sure why I'm so uninspired lately.

The influx of cardboard continues at a decent pace.  There have been a steady stream of trades every few days or so.  I just sent out four more PWEs, on top of two or three bubble mailers.  And I've taken in several packages of varying sizes in the last couple weeks.

I also got two halves of another major SportLots order in. 

But none of it is really remarkable enough to post about.  No disrespect to the traders - I love what I got - it's just mostly set hits from things I or many others have posted about already.  My big order was a start to the serial numbered base set from 2007 Sweet Spot Classic, and the back end of two huge rookie saturated football sets from the early 2000s. 

I just get tired of doing nothing but loot posts and trades.  They're fine, but there's got to be better ideas to sprinkle in now and then.  Look at how Night Owl can make profound statements, even out of the contents of a PWE...

Another strike against me is that I write posts in the same place that I do phone support for work.  I have my work phone, laptop and all the connecting equipment set up in the computer room hooked to the monitor that also serves my home PC.  I could go over to the card room and use the other monitor and keyboard I have over there, but then I'm contending with the piles of cards on the desk.  There's not quite adequate room for the mouse over there.  But either way, it's more "screen time" on top of a full 8-hour day.  I'm already half bleary eyed at 5 o'clock, so I'm not eager to sit there for another couple hours.

There's another obvious lack of inspiration since there are no live games to watch.  We're still waiting for all the leagues to negotiate salaries, schedules, locations, and COVID precautions to start or continue their seasons.  They're still weeks away.

Expected this

Found this

Since I've still continued to buy and trade cards online, I wasn't really motivated to check the retail aisles since the stores have opened up.  (I'm not sure the Targets & Wal-Marts ever closed).  But I had the chance this past weekend.  Needed a couple things, so I ventured out to Target first, since they generally have a good selection.  What I found was that I hadn't missed a thing.  I don't think the distributor had been there since February.  There were about six or seven factory sets, mostly baseball, and two empty single pack dispenser boxes - and not a single sports card otherwise.  Not in their whole display - which it seemed had been encroached upon another three feet by the Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh section.  I didn't bother to look in Wally World.  I didn't want to spend any more time in there than I had to.  Maybe it's that cards are "non-essentials"?

I've still got nine monster boxes of football to sort through.  While I'm on phone duty, I'll turn around and sort out some of my dupes, so I've put most of my extra stuff in order.  That makes it nice to pull trade bait, but doesn't lend itself to good posts.  I've got one more post's worth on the baseball hoard, and then I might put up some giveaways, because it seems that's the trendy thing to do.  And I've got a lot of offbeat stuff to give away.

But in the meantime, I'll just have to muddle through my work duties, the negative energy from the pandemic and social protests, and the waiting game for sports, shops, and shows to open up again.

So don't worry, I'm not going away. I just might be going to bed early tonight.

The Stars Aligned In Seattle

Saw a neat little article on MLB.com about the Mariners and their won-loss record.

From 1995 to 2019 as of today - September 11, the Mariners record is....

1,995 and 2,019.

 Thought that was kinda cosmic....

Thanks Mom

Happy Mother's Day Sunday to all the Moms out there, and to all the sons and daughters who will be taking time out from sorting cardboard to celebrate with theirs.  And especially to the couple of you blogger guys that have had tough times with your mothers recently.  Probably not the most joyful occasion this year.

I don't want to live with my Mom any more, (was there much longer than I expected, but it did a lot of good financially), but it's probably going to be devastating to not have her around when that time eventually comes.  She's always been really supportive in everything (except maybe cards, but she doesn't say much about my collection except "What would I do with all this if something happened to you?").   My Dad's been gone for twelve years now, but still having Mom across town is a blessing.  His passing affected me a good bit, so I don't even want to think about when they're both gone.

I get the double whammy this time of year in that it's also my mother's birthday on the 10th (today).  Just got back from a nice dinner with her for the birthday part.  We'll go plant shopping over the weekend to take care of the other bit.  It's become our tradition.  Mom is always outside in the spring and fall planting, weeding, mowing, or clearing every single stick out of her 3/4 acre yard.  She's had to learn to pace herself the last few years, but is still much more active out there than a lot of women her age.  (She just passed the same milestone that Topps did in 2013.)

The one significant card I remember getting from her was the Jim Palmer 1966 rookie (the real thing, not the reprint above).  It happened Christmas of 1982.  I know this because it's documented in my "journal" from that year that I've been highlighting the card-related entries in my Collector's Log posts. 

If we could make our own 2010 insert sets, mine would look like this

But more importantly, she taught me how to manage my money, (and basically the other parts of my life) so very well that I'm now in a position to be able to enjoy this hobby without having to stretch my finances or be restricted by other obligations.  Most of the rest of my life is secure enough that I have lots of time and resources to devote to these crazy little cardboard slabs, both for me and for others.  I really like knocking off those "most wanted" cards on other blogger's lists, or finding stuff they don't have of the players they collect, especially when they don't expect it.  I heard about the generosity of blogger traders for a good while before I became one of them, and now I like to support that concept as much as I can.   That's how I try to roll, and it's because of how I was raised.

Thanks Mom!  From all of us!

Rookie Saturation - One More

A little add-on to my last post, or encore, if you will.  Keeping it short so I can go root for Fuji's Sharks to close out the Avalanche and advance to round 3 against the Blues.  Going to be tough to decide who I like there...but I digress.

Here is the complete count graph of all Topps sets from 1955 to 2018.  It's a combination of Topps flagship and Topps Update/Rookie & Traded etc. sets.  The blue line is physical cards produced each year.  The orange line is total players depicted on those cards.  There are many years where these two are the same number.

You'll probably have to click on the chart to see it very well since it's so long.

But what you can tell is that while the number of rookie cards fluctuates between seasons, the trend isn't really an incline one way or the other.  Rather, it's just kinda up and down around the 100 count mark (highlighted in yellow).

If you shave the peaks and low valleys, you can see a general flat-ish trend.  The actual range is something like 60-100 cards, or 100-150 players, and only falls outside of that a couple times over the 63 year span.  When I started this little study, I expected the left end to start around a few dozen and the right side be way up off the chart, but that isn't what happened.

Anyway, other suggestions for different analysis of this data (or any other, really) is welcome in the comments.

Rookie Card Saturation ... Fact Or Fiction?

As I've said many times before, I'm an old-school collector.  I don't really care or prioritize rookie cards in my cardboard pursuits.  When I started in the 80's, the most visible rookie cards were multi-player issues that I put at the end of team sets.  A lot of them were even numbered to show up in the end of sets too.  These days, rookies are the most popular and sought after things that the producers make and market.  It seems like most products are made to promote them, whether the player shown is the new phenom who is playing at the big league level, or the future prospect.  Either way, at least to me, the card market is all about the rookie player.

Sometimes I feel like the hobby is one big propaganda machine geared to force everyone to believe that rookies are the only worthwhile cards to collect.

I have been under the impression that the flagship sets issued in the last several years have been more saturated with rookie cards than ever.  Since the RC logo was developed in 2006, rookie cards have been more visible.  But I still thought that they put more younger players into the most recent sets compared to years past. And that Bowman became the most rookie-centric product of all, so the numbers of Bowman rookies must be huge. 

But is this really true?

I decided to go through and chart out the number of rookie cards issued in the major flaship sets.  Topps, of course was the only manufacturer until 1981, and then Donruss and Fleer joined.  Bowman (a sub-label of Topps) and Upper Deck appeared around 1989.  Then the other companies came and went a couple times and now we're basically left with Topps and Bowman again.  Topps issued Traded or Update sets under various names for most years.  The point of those being to catch up with more new rookies as well as the players that changed teams.  The Fleer name appeared under Fleer Tradition in the late 90's as well, and also issued some update sets.

So let's look at the numbers.  I went through the Trading Card Database and looked at the section on each set lableled Rookies.  Lucky for me, they already did most of the leg work.  Each Rookie list has all the cards issued for that set that qualify as rookie cards.  And they post a count above each list.  Now, any variations would add to that count, so I had to be on the lookout for those (I may have missed a few).  It also includes manager rookies, but they aren't in such significant numbers to make the counts much different.

I'm going to show these in reverse order, starting with the most recent years.  As you can see, the Topps numbers have been the largest for the last decade plus, especially in the Update set.  The biggest spike is 2015, with Topps issuing 179 rookie cards (with 192 different players depicted).  The little black numbers are the total player counts which take into account multi-player cards in Update.
Bowman, on the other hand, only puts about 30 rookie cards in it's flagship set, which is smaller than Topps.  I checked to see if Chrome or Draft Picks & Prospects had way more, but they really didn't.  You can see in 2012 that the counts for those two only nearly matched (not surpassing) flagship Topps.   The one glitch in this chart is that the database had no RC's designated for Donruss products from 2015-2017.  I'm not sure if that really means there aren't any, or they just didn't get listed on the site.

The graph shows it better.  except for spikes in 2006 by UD, and 2015 by Topps Update, the numbers have been fairly consistent.  No steady increase from left to right like I figured.

I suppose there is some effect from the number and quality of the actual rookie classes from year to year, but I don't know what the trends would be.  I'll just stick with counting cards.

OK, so lets look at the previous decades.  More companies and more cards, right?

So there are some differences.  Topps averaged in the 60's for the recent years, and now they drop to the 30's or 40's except for a few bigger numbers early.  The "Total Players" line is again, the total number of players depicted on the counted cards in Update.  From 1992 til 2001, there were a lot of 2-, 3-, and 4-player rookie cards put into those Update or Traded sets.  This makes a difference especially when you look at 1994 for example.  Topps created 66 cards with rookies on them, but there were 109 players on those 66 cards.

The most glaring part of this chart (not only because I highlighted the overall high - and low - numbers in yellow) is the Bowman numbers.  Peaking at an overall high of 202 in '93, Bowman's numbers blew up after their first year, and then cooled a bit until 2002.  There is your evidence that Bowman is the rookie-centric product, though I though it continued until now.  For some reason, it stopped dead after 2005.  Bowman went from 162 RC's to a stunning 10.  That may be because of the RC logo regulations, I'm not sure.

Click on the chart to see it full size.  Rookie saturation reached its highest levels in the early 1990's.  And except for the spikes in 2002-05, they haven't reached the 140 mark for a single set since.  Even if I were to combine the Topps and Update numbers together, they still wouldn't rival the Bowman numbers of the 90's.  Topps & Update would just about match the Bowman figures for the early 2000's.

So it had to start in the late 80's right?  None of the vintage sets before that probably had nearly that many rookies, did they?

Au contraire!

I went back to 1955 - mostly because it was a nice even number (and I had initially just done every five years to get a ballpark idea of the counts).  I listed out the counts for multi-player cards that appeared much more often back then in Flagship than they do now.  But there were almost just as many single player cards that were rookies along with the multi's.  So the counts were astonishingly high to me.

Remember I said that no set had hit the 140 mark except for '91-'94 and '02-'05 (plus a few in between)?  Check out the vintage levels!  '64, '65, '69, and '71 all surpass that mark, and several others come close!  The lowest number is 53 cards / 82 players. By just eyeballing it, the average is somewhere around 70 cards or over 100 players!  That means the average is well above most of the 2000's and a lot of the non-Topps sets of any decade!  Take out the Bowman bars on the previous graph, and vintage sets might double up most of the others!

So it is basically true that Topps + Topps Update has been issuing the highest numbers of rookie cards, but not just in the last few years.  It's been doing so since the turn of the century, and the numbers haven't moved much.  And you could even say that those numbers only ticked up a little since Topps started making cards in the first place.

Ironically, the conclusion I draw from this is that most collectors who get frustrated from the over-emphasis of rookie cards and the resulting concepts (like super short prints, mojo-centric products full of rookies, and other pitfalls of modern issues), go back to building vintage sets instead - where there are actually just as many, if not more rookies per capita!

Card Shopping Tragedy

When your phone dies the first time you go to a new epic card shop so now you don't have access to your want lists...

Got to a great new shop in an antique mall with tons of stuff about 11AM.  Phone died at 1:30.  All my lists are on my website.  No power outlets in the shop booth.

More on this later.

Football Team Ranking System

I've done my baseball team rankings a while ago, and also showed how I used to stack them up back in the day.  Since football is just getting rolling, and I have a bit more of an opinion on those teams, here are my preferences when it comes to pigskin squads.  Unfortunately, I've undone any sets that I had in order the old way when I put them in binders recently.  Not sure I have any record of my old order.  But here's the current version:

1. Washington Redskins

It's one of the toughest tasks in football to be a Redskins fan, but I still do it.  Competing with Dallas and New York and the hype machines behind them, plus now the defending champions are the Eagles, the only thing that will make the pundits mention our names in the positive is the fact that AP is on the roster.  Our ownership has relented into just trying to market the team to their audience, rather than thinking we can ever win anything. We've had a couple good games so far, so we'll see how it goes.


2. Minnesota Vikings

The Ravens would have been here, but they have regressed the last couple years.  This offseason, there was a lot of quarterback movement too.  The most notable swap around here was, of course, Kirk Cousins going to the Vikings.  That team was a win away from the Super Bowl, and now it's going to be interesting to see if Kirk is the piece that puts them over the top or sets them back a step. He came out firing the first game, but a tie and then a drubbing by the not-so-lowly-any-more Bills makes it seem like things have changed.


3. Arizona Cardinals

I've kinda followed the Cardinals the last couple years.  Watched a their Amazon All Or Nothing show in 2016 and have had some of their players on my fantasy rosters.  When they had Carson Palmer at the helm and were very competitive, I thought if I wasn't a Redskins fan, (or if I disowned the team for owner shenanigans or something) that I could convert to a Cardinals fan.  This year seems a bit different, though.  Johnson is back, but ol' Sam Bradford has been pitiful, so we'll see if the rookie can bring them back up to snuff. 


4. Baltimore Ravens

A lot of teams go as their quarterback goes, as evidenced by my card choices for most of these listings.  That definitely rings true for the Ravens.  Joe Flacco (the most fun name to say of all QB's) determines the majority of their payroll, and as a result, also determines their competitiveness.  He's doing better this year, so the "other" local team is on the uptick.


5. Kansas City Chiefs

The "other red Indian team" has been on my like list ever since I won a couple fantasy seasons with (and started a major player collection of) Priest Holmes.  Now that their former veteran QB is running my favorite offense, it just adds to the appeal.  Not to mention that the kid in the picture is seriously killing it.  Always a quality organization and playoff contender in the last decade or two, this is a team I can get behind.


6. Denver Broncos

One of those staple teams for the 4:00 game on Sundays, the Broncos have been in the playoff hunt for most of the seasons since Jake Plummer stood under center.  I was never a big fan of Elway, but liked the team otherwise.  Peyton Manning cemented them as one of the top AFC teams, but they've kinda struggled since.  Case Keenum should bring some stability.  They will rely on his passing, since the times are gone when you could win with simply making 1000 yard rushers out of anyone that came to practice, like it seemed the Shanahans could.  (Until, of course, they came to DC.)


7. Los Angeles Rams

These guys are just coming up in the ranks of perennial contenders.  Of course, it's with a former Redskin coach.  It never fails that a former DC guy goes to another team and raises his game to another level.  The Rams are another afternoon game staple that make me think of Pat Haden, Vince Ferragamo, and Merlin Olsen - the latter more for calling the game than playing in it.  And Marc Bulger, Torry Holt, and Isaac Bruce were pretty good too, not to mention guys named Faulk, Dickerson, Warner, and London Fletcher.  Rams games always seem to be high scoring, even though lately they've had some D-line studs.


8. Green Bay Packers

As I write this, Washington is celebrating their win over the Packers (again).  We seem to have their number in the last couple years.  But no one can deny that Aaron Rodgers is one of the all time greats.  And he inherited that title from the guy before him, that Favra dude who wouldn't quit.  Probably the franchise that the league can be most proud of, the Packers are the best at not being about the money, the hype, or the owners.  If we weren't playing them, they might be even higher on the list.


9. Atlanta Falcons

Yet another consistent winner with a marquee quarterback, the Falcons have been on the cusp of a dynasty for a good while.  They just seem to finish just short of winning it all every year or two.  The Michael Vick thing was kind of a blemish, but otherwise, they're sort of the dark horse big time team.  They have all kinds of star power, so it should just be a matter of time before they're over the top. I like them better now than back when they were the Dirty Birds.


10. New Orleans Saints

Who Dey?  They're the Cinderella story of the NFL several years ago.  They got this guy Brees from the Chargers who was allegedly washed up, and watched him take them to the championship, and become one of the most involved players in his community.  I remember back in the day, the Saints were what the Browns are now, and today they're winners.  This team knit the fans and the surrounding area so tight together it's remarkable.  Plus Brees is small in stature, but plays like one of the biggest superstars in the league.  They just never seem to have much on the other side of the ball.


11. Oakland Raiders

Deh Rrrraaaiidahs are really making waves in the league lately.  With Jon Gruden back on the sidelines, and the team heading for Vegas eventually, they are the most interesting team in the league.  Derek Carr is playing very well, and if they can keep their stars healthy, they will go far.  They've gotten away from being the bad boys of the NFL, though the Black Hole grandstand is still full of menacing characters.  But it is fun to watch the silver and black.  They should mic up Chucky for every game.


12. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

I would have put Ryan Fitzpatrick as the image here due to recent developments, but he doesn't really have any significant Bucs cards yet.  I was afraid these guys were going to be the bottom feeders this year (as did a lot of the pundits), but FitzMagic is going crazy so far, and it appears that it won't slow down any time soon even when Famous (for all the wrong reasons) Jameis comes back.  I'm glad to see this team do well, though a lot of it was that I hoped Winston could get his act together and succeed.  We'll see.


13. Houston Texans

If I'd have done this last year, I don't think there would have been half this many quarterbacks as the representatives of teams.  But this year seems to be the biggest season that either new QBs are taking over, injured star passers are returning, or big names have changed teams.  J.J. Watt is the face of this team, but I was very impressed by Deshaun Watson in 2017 and was anxious to see if he'd duplicate the performance this season.  Doesn't seem like he's blowing it up nearly as much, but it's early.  The Texans are as close as a football team can get to still reminding me that they're a recent expansion club.  They're just don't have any kind of multi-decade legacy, so it just feels like they're a half step below the majority of the NFL.  It's hard to explain, but I still kinda root for them when they're on.


14.  Indianapolis Colts

Always connected to my home state in my mind, the Colts are the team that left Baltimore in the middle of the night, and drafted the other guy right before we got RGIII.  Between Peyton Manning's long career there, and coach Chuck Pagano's Chuck Strong saga (and subsequent quiet exit), I think of the Colts as more about those stories than they're onfield accomplishments.  Lately their potential has vastly outweighed their success.


15. (San Diego refugees to) LA Chargers 

What is it with California teams and relocation?  The Chargers are now the football Angels in that they messed up their name by moving out of the city where they belong.  I'll never call them the LA Chargers.  That was over in 1961. They used to be the top team that always played the late game.  I watched Dan Fouts, Kellen Winslow, and Charlie Joiner many Sundays running their Air Coryell offense.  Now, Philip Rivers has been there since 2004 and they always seem to follow the same pattern.  Start off slow, and then surge at the end to make the playoffs.  They reversed the trend a time or two recently, but haven't put it all together quite yet.  They miss LT and thought that the immortal Antonio Gates was done too, but he came back for this year. 


16. Jacksonville Jaguars

This image should have probably been one of their defensive guys, but I was looking them up by team and this R&S card came up.  Since I wanted to keep the card selections diverse, I went with it.  This is another emerging team that has made some noise from time to time but never really made steady progress.  Bortles is closer to Trent Dilfer than Mark Brunell, but he's shown flashes.  Guys like Calais Campbell, Marcell Dareus, Jaylen Ramsey, and Myles Jack hope to be the newest version of the 2000 Ravens, who proved defense wins championships.


17. Pittsburgh Steelers

The most popular team in my local area, the Steelers have been moving toward being the football Red Sox or Penguins for the last couple years in my mind.  Big Ben plays great, but is kind of a putz in real life.  AB is amazing and he knows it.  These guys always win a few games by dumb luck or favorable calls, so they're no longer the team you marvel at like back when Bradshaw, Swann, Stallworth and Mean Joe ruled the field.  They have the biggest fan base of all 32 teams, but the hype is taking over just a bit too much for my tastes.


18.  San Francisco 49ers

I resisted the urge to put Colin Kaepernick up here, but he's not playing any more anyhow.  The Niners will always be about Joe Montana and Steve Young.  But recently, they've been more visible for the National Anthem controversy than for their onfield play.  A lot of that is because they're on the left coast.  It's still strange to me that they made it to the Super Bowl a few years ago and now are just getting back to competitive form...maybe.  With all that's happened to put them in the headlines, it's easy to focus on everything but the team on the field.


19. Cincinnati Bengals

These guys play in the shadows of the Steelers and the Ravens most of the time.  And are even overshadowed by the Browns' futility (that hopefully just ended) as well.  Marvin Lewis has been there for what feels like forever, and they don't really make a lot of progress.  Delinquent players and injuries to key stars always seem to derail any hope they build up.  They have plenty of star power, but just keep hitting the wall at the playoffs.


20. Detroit Lions

Detroit and Cleveland should become sister cities.  Bound by a common thread of futility, those two should merge and maybe they'll catch a break.  But seriously, this team is like the Charlie Browns (no pun intended) of the National Football League.  If Stafford doesn't mess up in a critical moment, they'll get a bad call or bounce that kills their chances.  I think my friend Stuart (who's a fan of theirs) would agree that it's almost as hard to be a Lions fan as it is to follow the Redskins.  People just don't hate their owner quite as much.


21. Chicago Bears

Da Bears have had the second longest list of starting quarterbacks both since 2000, and in the entire Super Bowl era.  Trubisky succeeds a short period of relative stability that was vacated when Jay Cutler left (after Sexy Rexy departed for DC).  Chicago is always about defense, though.  Their legacy is linebackers, especially MLB's like Singletary, Butkus, and Urlacher.  Now they have Khalil Mack wreaking havoc and carrying on the tradition.  At some point, though, they'll have to figure out how to score points.


22. Buffalo Bills

I actually had Nathan Peterman here, but his tenure has ended quickly.  I feel for the Buffalo fans who not only joined Minnesota in witnessing four Super Bowl losses, but all in a row!  But that only goes so far since one of them was against Washington.  They could have beaten Dallas at least once!  But I digress... I really liked it when they went with the white throwback helmets and colors.  The red was just meh.  Too bad they may turn out to be starting over completely after just making the playoffs last year to end a long drought.


23. Carolina Panthers

I really rooted for Carolina in their Super Bowl against the Patriots with Jake Delhomme.  They just seemd to give up at the end.  The current team starts and ends with Cam Newton.  He's a great player, but is a little too full of himself.  I'd like him on my fantasy roster, but not as an actual teammate. My favorite Panther was Stephen Davis, but more for his time with another team.  (Three guesses).


24. Miami Dolphins

A long way from the undefeated squad from '72 (who capped it against the 'Skins), the 'Fins are making progress after a decade of .500 or less (except 2016).  The press on them this year was that they wouldn't do much, but Tannehill is top five in several QB categories.  Miami hasn't caught my attention since the Ricky Williams days, except when they continued the trend in the league of messing with their graphics, with an inferior result.  The logo isn't horrible, but the unis overall aren't as good looking.


25. New York Jets

The lesser of the New York teams, the Jets don't get nearly the love that the G-Men do.  Must be because that would divert attention from the league favorite Patriots in their division.  Though I will say that they've had two televised games already this year, and Sam Darnold is holding his own among the top fledgling signal callers.  Being more famous for butt fumbles and kissing Suzy Kulber doesn't bode well for their success.  They are very successful in maintaining a balance of classic and modern uniform design.


26. Cleveland Browns

I am glad to say that I witnessed the Browns' first win in more than two seasons.  The ultimate underdogs, you can't help but root for them at this point.  Though the administration has to have the worst draft legacy of all time.  They just can't seem to get it right.  Baker Mayfield hopefully breaks that tradition.  Putting the team name on the uniforms like the players and fans would otherwise forget wasn't the best decision either.  Yes, when I get to the bottom end of the list, I resort to uniform aesthetics.


27. Philadelphia Eagles

As a division rival, the Eagles automatically qualify for the back end of these rankings.  But as (another) team that defeated the Patriots in the Super Bowl, they earn a couple bonus points.  I actually liked Donovan McNabb against everyone else, including T.O., but can't give them a high rank otherwise.  But I can say they're the least hated of the three NFC East competitors.  They got their championship, so maybe they're fans will mellow out a little.  The fans are more hateable than the team, really....


28. New York Giants

The blue is nice.  Lawrence Taylor was a beast.  And they beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl - twice!  That's about all I like about the Giants.  They are behind only the Pats and Cowboys on the list of most hyped teams in the league.  Even if they're 0-for the season, they will be on TV every week, and the talking heads will go on and on asking why they aren't winning, like it's a violation of the league rules or something.  It's all about the market size.


29. Seattle Seahawks

Seattle, and the Oilers that became the Titans, were my other two favorite teams as a kid.  This was at the time of Earl Campbell and Dan Pastorini, as well as Jim Zorn and Steve Largent in the 'Hawks initial years.  Now, Seattle has become a hated matchup in the 'Skins few playoff appearances.  Plus, they're another QB-centric team like Carolina, who are a little overachieving (meaning lucky).  They've also delved into bizarre uniform color combos every now and then.  The Legion Of Boom have moved on, and with them the perennial playoff hopes of the remaining team.


30. Tennesee Titans

Not sure how the Titans ended up this far down.  Like Gregg Easterbrook used to call them, the Flaming Thumbtacks are a decent team.  Mariota has brought them up from total failure, but even when they changed divisions and got away from Pittsburgh and Baltimore, they're still stuck behind the Colts and Jacksonville most of the time.  They never show up on an East coast broadcast, so I don't have much else to say, except that they have done the most to mess up their unis this season.  Egad, those helmets are hideous!


31. New England Patriots

As I've said many times before, Brady is accurate, makes good decisions, and has played consistently forever.  But I just get sick of broadcasters gushing over his Godliness.  Put him on Buffalo or the Browns and see if he's still superhuman.  He doesn't throw 80 yard bombs, doesn't scramble, and won't get over 20 rushing yards a game.  They make it sound like he does everything himself.  Belechick is the reason they win so much.  Brady is just the guy who is there all the time.  Otherwise, they'll use 47 different guys on offense in the course of a season.  Gronk is goofy enough that you can't completely hate him.  And Pat Patriot was better than the Flying Elvis they have now.  They should do a Bills and go back to the retros full time.


32. Dallas Cowboys

There's Dak, on the sidelines where I hope to see him when they play Washington.  I'd put Ezekiel Elliott up here to mix it up, but I can't stand to look at him.  Dallas will always be my most hated team since they're the arch rivals to the Redskins.  Especially since their owner pays extra to get his way in the league.  And he's in the Hall Of Fame?  For what?  Revenue generation?  Puhleeze.  They're the biggest recipient of the Hype Machine in the entire league.  It's a league and media crisis when they're losing.  (And they are).  They stole the Thanksgiving tradition from Detroit.  And I can't even watch the cheerleader training show because it's just tragic to watch those innocent young girls be seduced to the Dark Side.


So there you go.  Like anyone, my rankings are based on winning, or star players, but often it's more about the connections to my #1 team, or merely uniforms.  At least I've seen more of these teams play a couple times recently.  There are some baseball teams that I never see.  At some point I may try to recreate my preference list I had as a youngster, but I'll have to find it recorded somewhere first.  I know it will be radically different from this one.  But the league changes every year.