Pack Break: 2017 Panini Playoff

The other day while at Walmart a noticed a new rack pack of football cards that didn't look familiar...Playoff. While I'm very familiar w/ the Playoff brand, I didn't realize Panini scooped up that brand name or had released this set of cards.

I grabbed two rack packs, plus a few singles off eBay after I opened these packs, so this post is more or less to showcase what the base cards, parallels and some of the inserts look like.

Eack retail rack pack contains 40 cards for $4.99. I think Panini does a good job at giving the collector a decent bang for their buck. The packs feature Marcus Mariotta and my Panthers' Christian McCaffrey. Each pack contains 3 exclusive blue parallels.

What I didn't know going into opening this pack (or knew from the pack itself) was that the base set includes a good mixture of many past players, including Hall of Famers. I like it when older players are mixed in from time to time. I mean, who doesn't like pulling a new Bo Jackson card?

Speaking of past players, here are a few that I randomly pulled to scan. The card design is rather plain, but at least the horizontal stripes on the side mimic the team color. The card back gives a decent write up about the player, but it uses the same photo from the front. Come on Panini, that's lazy! I was particularly happy to pull the Panthers card of Kevin Greene.

A small selection of two QBs that I just happen to love to hate! I did notice as I sorted through the stack of cards that the photography was average. I didn't come across any cards that made me do a second look. Most of the photos are your standard fare football photos.

Goal Line are the included retail exclusive parallels. The name is replaced with a blue foil and the words "Goal Line" are placed on each side of the team logo. At least I got a decent parallel of a future HOF player.

Rookies must be short printed as I only pulled one per pack, though I did get a few RCs in the parallel set. Despite this set coming out late in the 2017 NFL season, Panini seemed to use photos from the rookie photo shoots prior to the season beginning.

The only insert I pulled from the two packs was this Momentum card of Larry Fitzgerald. Cool design, but again the same photo is used on the front and back. Overall odds for the inserts seem to fall around 1:3 packs.

I purchased this Rookie Stallions relic card of Christian McCaffrey for a few bucks off eBay. I love the painted front, but I mistakenly thought the card had a canvas like look/feel. The foil used for the names on the front is green. I don't know if this is a parallel or not, but I don't care for the gree foil as it looks out of place. Since it has the words "Hail Mary" underneath the Rookie Stallions logo, my guess is this is some sort of parallel.

The same Rookie Stallions card of Curtis Samuel has silver foil and is numbered 029/149.

I also grabbed an auto off eBay. This one too has the "Hail Mary" words on the front so I'm guessing it's a parallel. It's a sticker auto, but ever since Samuel went down for the year, his cards have remained fairly cheap...which is good for my wallet.

2017 Panini Playoff is a mixed bag. I like the value (at least with these rack packs) and the mix of veterns and current players is nice. The design is average, but it looses a point for using the same photo on the back of the card. The inserts appears to be pretty nice, but had I not resorted to a few eBay purchases I would have had to base my judgement off the one insert I found in my packs. Panini could have done better, but they could have done worse as well. Not sure if this set is worthy of the Playoff name.