XFL, we hardly knew you.
Vince McMahon’s second attempt at professional football was derailed by the coronavirus, which forced the league to lay off staffers and suspend operations. The XFL’s parent company, Alpha Entertainment, was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 13.
McMahon, chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment, had some new ideas for the league, but COVID-19 doomed it from the start after league action began Feb. 19.
Bad timing. Topps released its XFL set on April 15, two days after the league filed for bankruptcy. For the second straight year, Topps put out a set of a league competing with the NFL — the Alliance of American Football had a set last year — that failed.
That is not Topps’ fault, of course. It is difficult to control world events, and coronavirus affected everyone and shut down sports.
Vince McMahon’s second attempt at professional football was derailed by the coronavirus, which forced the league to lay off staffers and suspend operations. The XFL’s parent company, Alpha Entertainment, was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 13.
McMahon, chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment, had some new ideas for the league, but COVID-19 doomed it from the start after league action began Feb. 19.
Bad timing. Topps released its XFL set on April 15, two days after the league filed for bankruptcy. For the second straight year, Topps put out a set of a league competing with the NFL — the Alliance of American Football had a set last year — that failed.
That is not Topps’ fault, of course. It is difficult to control world events, and coronavirus affected everyone and shut down sports.
Anyway, the XFL set contained 175 base cards, with one insert subset and autographs. I bought a blaster box, which had 10 packs and 10 cards to a pack.
The card design is simple, and many of the photographs show the player posing in front of a background that featured the Topps and XFL logos. The league logo is placed in the upper left-hand corner, with the team logo positioned in the lower left-hand corner.
The lower half of the card has three lines that intersect with the team logos from horizontal and vertical directions. The player’s name and position are underneath the horizontal lines. They probably could have been a little larger, but it still works.
The card backs list vital statistics and have the team logo in the upper right-hand corner, with that same intersecting lines concept. The player’s name is positioned to the left of the team logo. Finally, there are seven lines of type devoted to a biographical sketch. Interestingly, if a player competed previously on an NFL squad, the team name is not mentioned — just the city. So, when wide receiver Alonso Russell’s card notes he made his pro debut in 2018 with New York, some collectors might have to double-check to see which franchise (it was the Giants).
The card design is simple, and many of the photographs show the player posing in front of a background that featured the Topps and XFL logos. The league logo is placed in the upper left-hand corner, with the team logo positioned in the lower left-hand corner.
The lower half of the card has three lines that intersect with the team logos from horizontal and vertical directions. The player’s name and position are underneath the horizontal lines. They probably could have been a little larger, but it still works.
The card backs list vital statistics and have the team logo in the upper right-hand corner, with that same intersecting lines concept. The player’s name is positioned to the left of the team logo. Finally, there are seven lines of type devoted to a biographical sketch. Interestingly, if a player competed previously on an NFL squad, the team name is not mentioned — just the city. So, when wide receiver Alonso Russell’s card notes he made his pro debut in 2018 with New York, some collectors might have to double-check to see which franchise (it was the Giants).
A blaster box contains 100 cards. I pulled 90 different base cards and six doubles. I thought the duplicates might have been parallels — after all, the set has parallels in green (numbered to 99), purple (50), blue (25), red (10), black (5) and gold (1/1) — but that was not the case. I did, however, pull one parallel — a green parallel of Russell.
Most of the players will not be known to the casual football fan unless you are heavily into the college game. It was nice to see a card of Aaron Murray, the former University of Georgia quarterback who starred at Plant High School in Tampa. The other “names” I pulled, predictably, were coaches and front office personnel — Winston Moss, Bob Stoops and Jerry Glanville.
I also pulled a pair of inserts from the 25-card Stars of the XFL subset — P.J. Walker and Rashad Ross.
The good news about the autograph cards is that they are not on stickers. The bad news (for me) is that I pulled linebacker Tre Williams, who decided to sign his card as “Tre W. #52” Seriously? It only takes a few seconds longer to sign your last name.
The Topps XFL set is nice, but it was undercut by events out of the control of the league and the trading card giant. Rest in peace, XFL.
Most of the players will not be known to the casual football fan unless you are heavily into the college game. It was nice to see a card of Aaron Murray, the former University of Georgia quarterback who starred at Plant High School in Tampa. The other “names” I pulled, predictably, were coaches and front office personnel — Winston Moss, Bob Stoops and Jerry Glanville.
I also pulled a pair of inserts from the 25-card Stars of the XFL subset — P.J. Walker and Rashad Ross.
The good news about the autograph cards is that they are not on stickers. The bad news (for me) is that I pulled linebacker Tre Williams, who decided to sign his card as “Tre W. #52” Seriously? It only takes a few seconds longer to sign your last name.
The Topps XFL set is nice, but it was undercut by events out of the control of the league and the trading card giant. Rest in peace, XFL.
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