Are you ready for some football...cards!

The NFL season is off and running and as a New York Jets fan I gotta say, I was full of optimism for this year. Now we are in week 3 of the season and I have already checked out. Hopefully the Jets can turn this thing around and start racking up some Ws? But until that happens I'm going to reminisce on the good ol' days when football players were more than just marketing tools, they were tough and beat the snot out of each other without the yellow flags being thrown! These days were the late 80s & early 90s! Let's take a trip down memory lane and tear into some vintage NFL trading cards, shall we?

Action Packed 1989

Oh my gosh! These cards were amazing! They were embossed and had gold foil graphics. Action Packed was a real game changer when they came out, but they were unable to hold their appeal with collectors. I remember trading for these cards with my friends mostly for the Jets cards, but definately because of their cool factor!

Score 1990

In the 80s & 90s Score and Topps were the go to cards for me. They seemed to be the most affordable and you got a decent product. These cards from 1990 were totally a victim of their time. I say victim, but I really do like the bold colors and almost full card photos in this set. They also had some great subsets and some of the best rookie cards of the year.

Fleer Ultra 1991

Ah, Fleer Ultra. The premium card set. 1991 was early on in the Fleer Ultra brand and they really hadn't hit their stride yet. It would be another year or so until Ultra would include the UV coating and foil embossing that I loved so much. Overall this is not a bad set, just sort of plain.

Pacific Plus 1991

Pacific was always an afterthought in my collecting experience. Yeah, we had the cards but no one avidly collected them. I mostly picked up these cards so I could grab another cardboard version of my favorite player...Bo Jackson. This is a clean looking set, but it just didn't have the clout in the market as some of the bigger card producers.

Ted Williams 1994

I didn't even know this card set existed until a year or so ago when I found packs at an antique store for 75 cents each! This is a nice looking set filled with NFL greats of the past and some from the present. There were some nice subsets included and you did get a bonus POG card in each pack! As a side note, I never knew "Anti Counterfeit Ink" was needed to produce a football card set?