Try a pack #1: 2016 Donruss Football

Decided to try something new on the blog.  I see a lot of stuff in the Target card aisle that I normally turn my nose up at.  That's right, look at it and kind of go "ugh" and turn away. 

I've dabbled with football in the past, and had to stop collecting it because my primary hobby loves of hockey and baseball really took up most of my budget.  But there are others out there whose envelopes I might help fill with a football card here and there.

So when at Target on the weekend, I looked at all the packs that they had and grabbed 3 different products that I normally would never buy, just to try my luck.  Every now and then I'll do the same as new releases come out.  Who knows, I just may pull something that somebody really wants! 

The first of the packs I'm going to feature is a pack of 2016 Donruss football, which I bought kind of by accident because I thought it was 2017.  This new series has already taught me to look a little closer at the writing on the front of the pack.

After opening the pack, I recognized the cards as I've seen them on someone's blog in the past.

I like that Donruss used the team colors in the border, makes it a lot nicer for team collectors in my opinion.  I pulled a couple of legends cards; I like the photo of Joe Namath even though I can't quite tell who he's playing against (if someone recognizes the player/team, please let me know in the comments). 

This was a rack pack of 20 cards, so to me it made sense that a good portion of the base was devoted to the skill positions.  Imagine if the Case Keenum card had a yellow border, it might just burn out your retinas.  Didn't pull any star RBs in the pack, but got some names that I knew. 

3 of the 4 defensive base cards featured players I knew, including the only Steelers player in the pack, Cameron Heyward.  I'm hoping Craig "Ironhead" Heyward's son comes back from off-season surgery and bolsters that defensive line in 2017. 

Pulled 3 blue press proof cards in the pack, I understand that there is more than one color of the press proof parallels (which doesn't make sense to me).  If I remember correctly, Max from the Starting Nine blog collects Saints, so maybe he'll be interested in the two of these.  Will Fuller of the Texans on the right had a decent rookie season, totaling 635 yards in catches over 14 games. 

The Noah Spence card on the left made me remember that I'd seen this set before, as it looks very similar to the 1990 Donruss baseball set.   I have to start watching more west coast games this season, as I didn't remember Hunter Henry on the right.  Hunter seemed to have a decent first season as a TE for the Chargers, with 36 catches for 476 yards and 8 TDs!  Not shabby.  Donruss could have been smarter and made the border for the Rated Rookie cards the same as the team's colors.  Would have made sense to me, as it would have just followed the rest of the set.

For me, the cards don't look bad at all.  I don't know if this would be the first choice if I ever started collecting football again, but the pack wasn't that bad to be honest.  Maybe there's someone out there that may need a home for these, just let me know.

Thanks for reading, Robert