Pack Break: 2018 Panini Rookie & Stars

I'm still waiting to find a football set in 2018 that really captures my attention. Panini's Donruss brand has filled that desire for the past two years, but I didn't care for the design (although I'm building 2018 Donruss baseball) so I decided to save my money. Will the old Leaf product, Rookie & Stars get me excited for a non-super premium football set? I grabbed a 10 card retail pack from Target to give it a try.

First card out of the pack was Detroit Lions' WR, Golden Tate III. While the borders do eat up a lot of the card's real estate, I actually don't mind the design. At least the cards appear to use the team color on parts of the border. Thankfully Panini went light with the use of foil stamping, opting to only use silver foil on the Rookie & Stars logo. I like this because when the players name is foil stamped it can be hard to read at times.

I will ding Panini for taking the lazy route and using the same picture, just cropped for the back. Lack of any stats is also puzzling. Could we not even get 2017's stats?

After this past weekend's game, I'm NOT a fan of Myles Garrett and the Cleveland Browns for continuing the Carolina Panthers' losing streak!

These Action Packed cards sadly aren't embossed like the Action Packed of old. However at least we get a horizontal action shot, a nice change from the basic card design.

Standing Ovation is another insert set. Those "scanlines" in the background makes the card look like an old CRT television!

Rookies seem to come two per pack and feature a similar design to the base cards. This Packers RC is being set aside for one of my few regular football traders. The rest of the cards are available if anyone wants them.

Overall I like the small sampling from this pack. Not enough to build the set, but enough for me to get in on a group break of Rookie & Stars where I grabbed my hometown Panthers. Be on the lookout for a post with my haul.