2011 Panini Plates & Patches Football NFL Trading Cards Box Break Recap and Review

What happened to Plates & Patches?  Last year it was such a solid product, nicely packaged in a wooden box with a slabbed hit.  2011 Panini Plates & Patches has done away with the upscale packaging and encased hit which would be OK if what ever those cost saving entail were thrown back into the cards to make them even better this year, but unfortunately that is not the case here.

Plates & Patches falls under our premium cards category.  Each hobby box contains 10 cards with a promise of three autographs and two memorabilia, but our box was shorted one card, which happens to be one of the autograph hits.

Here are the cards we pulled from our box.

 Roddy White Base #/299, front and back

 Sidney Rice #/299, Stanley Havili #/100

 Kenny Britt #/50, Peyton Manning City Limits #/249

 Mason Foster Autograph #/199, Knowshon Moreno Dual Jersey #/50

 MarK Sanchez Jersey #/299, Jonathan Baldwin RPS Rookie Signautres Redemption #/499

 Calvin Johnson Prime Jersey Logo #/5

Overall Look

There is a lot of foil here and all of the lettering is embedded in it.  The white marble background is a nice choice but the City Limits cards were better last year. 

Quality and Variety of Players

Rookie prospecting is all the rage in Football, but as a post-season product this checklist is overloaded with these first year players.  This checklist could and should have been pared down.  There are even names within the 36 Rookie Premiere group that could be dropped at this point, but most likely Panini is contractually obligated to keep them, but then why add an additional 100 rookies, most of whom had little impact, to the mix, especially when the majority of the autographs are coming from that pool.  No question, there are some big name pulls within the other cards, but those tend to be extremely low numbered case hits.

Do the Hits satisfy? 

Unfortunately the emphasis on the non Premiere Rookies here detracts from the overall impression of the other hits.  Yes there are some big pulls to find, but the majority here seem to be rookie autographs.

Will you keep coming back for more?

This is one of those momentum builder products, hit a good box off the bat and you probably will be dipping in for seconds. 

Rating

2 1/2 out of 5

2011 Panini Plates & Patches Football might work better early in the season when expectations are high, but as a post season product when player values have been determined, it feels out of touch.