America vs. The Patriots

Okay, so I took a couple days off, but don't worry I'm still here! It is Super Bowl Sunday, America's most widely celebrated holiday as far as I can tell. A year ago, I spent my Super Bowl at a bar in Florence explaining the rules of the game to a kid from South Korea. I was out until 4:30 in the morning because of the time difference, and had up to be up by 8:00 for class. Good times.

Since the topic of the day is football, I figured I would catch you up on a few really sweet Jets cards I've picked up in recent months. Now, I know, the words "sweet" and "Jets" shouldn't usually be used in the same sentence, but take my word for this please.

2013 Topps Five Star Curtis Martin Auto 15/25

First, I was able to finally add my all time favorite football player, Curtis Martin, to my autograph collection. Martin was the star of the first Jets team I payed any attention to, and I immediately gravitated towards him. Thomas Jones, Leon Washington, new Hall of Famer LaDainian Tomlinson, the late Joe McKnight, Chris Ivory, Bilal Powell, and Matt Forte have since shared the backfield, but nobody has done it for me quite like Curtis did.

Last summer at a card show I debated whether to buy myself a full sized signed helmet of his, and ended up coming up just short on the funds necessary to do that. Several months later, I bought this beautiful card for a fraction of the price.

2015 Topps Chrome Leonard Williams Auto /99

There was something really appealing about this camo parallel rookie autograph of our lone Pro Bowler, Leonard Williams. The "Big Cat" delivered on his 6th overall draft selection this year and picked up the slack left behind by Muhammad Wilkerson and Sheldon Richardson. The defense this year was so disappointing, with Williams being the only true exception.

2014 Panini Flawless Eric Decker Auto 14/25

Ryan Fitzpatrick really missed Eric Decker this year. He only played in 3 games in 2016 before being placed on IR for hip and shoulder injuries that both required surgery. It sounds like he should be ready to go by the start of next season, which hopefully can help regain some of the magic he and Brandon Marshall shared the season prior.

Regardless of how the rest of his Jets career plays out, I'll never forget him for my all time favorite in person memory. Dad and I finally got to see a Jets vs. Patriots game in 2015, and Decker hauled in the game winning touchdown reception in the corner of the end zone that kept us in the playoff hunt. While I don't like talking about what happened in Buffalo the next week, in that moment I was so proud to be a Jets fan.

2015 Panini Luxe Darrelle Revis Patch Auto 4/5

We'll close this up with the man famous for shutting down this generation's best wide receivers in the game, Darrelle Revis. It was not a good year for "Revis Island". But, as a Jet fan I've gotten used to trying to find some form of a silver lining for everything so I keep from losing my sanity. We only have 3 more years to go!

Now I don't mean to sound like a downer, but man has this guy put us through a lot over the years. I feel like his entire career has been a contract negotiation. He left us and went to the Bucs, and then won a Super Bowl with the devil! It was extremely painful seeing him hoist the Lombardi Trophy with Tom Brady by his side, but I guess in a weird way I'm glad he got the chance to win after quite possibly being the greatest defensive player in franchise history.

So while he may continue to bug me for 3 more years as he gets old and wears down, he'll always be a Jet legend and down the road I'll be even happier to own this card. Also, I'm starting to grow very fond of these framed autographs. They're very aesthetically pleasing.

Alright, so that'll have it. No Joe Namath auto yet, apologies.

Go Falcons!

Mail from the Pirates Treasure Room!

Hey guys, Drew back here. Man, do I have a lot of stuff to post. This is about as good of a time to be a baseball card blogger right now, when you literally can hardly see your desk because it's so cluttered with stuff! One of such endless stacks of cardboard happened to come from a blog that is filled with Pittsburgh Pirates treasure! My good buddy Brian from "Pirates Treasure Room" and I hooked up for a pretty solid trade all around! Take a look at some of what I got in my side of the deal:

He kicked off the trade with some really awesome 2012 Topps cards! I haven't bought one single pack of the new Topps. Yeah, I feel like I'm breaking one of the card collecting commandments with that. But I'll get my hands on some eventually. I'll probably have most of the Yankees inserts by then, thanks to all the awesome bloggers sending me them, but that'll be perfectly fine with me! I have to say I love the Walk-offs Concept but the design sucks; I like the Gold Standards for the most part; and the Golden Greats are alright I guess. 

The inserts that shouldn't have ever happened were definitely the Golden Moments cards. For relics, I can see it. But for plain old boring inserts? Nah. Nonetheless I needed a good majority of the 2012 Topps cards he sent over so that was certainly appreciated an awful lot. 

Brian also recognized my Jets collection, and sent over quite a few of them to me! As of what I've seen, 2011 was the year of Bilal Powell overload in football cards. While I like him, I can't see many others liking him all that much. After all, he is a 4th round pick, so it isn't all that intriguing to pull his autograph in practically every other pack. On a second note, I always love some Curtis Martin and Wayne Chrebet stuff, because they were two of the guys that got me into football in the first place!

I absolutely love the heck out of this card! I mean, the diamond/gold subject does tend to get a little old after a while, but nonetheless I still find this to be an awesome looking card of an awesome up and comer in Betances! He showed a few signs at the end of last year when he was called up, so hopefully he has the potential to make the Yankees rotation one day. 

I've been wanting to get a hold of one of these Topps Lineage relics for a while now, and when I saw his Prince Fielder relic in his for trade bin, I had to ask. I'm definitely a big fan of Prince, and although I prefer him in that Brewers uniform, I'll continue to like him even if he steals all Teixeira's All Star votes! These are really cool looking cards though without a doubt. Certainly something new and inventive, which is nice to see in the hobby. 

My favorite card of the trade, however, was this 2009 Panini Certified Darrelle Revis relic numbered out of 99. For a while I thought the future face of the Jets franchise would definitely be Mark Sanchez, but it seems like I guessed wrong! Considering there have been rumors flowing around about whether the Jets should go after Peyton Manning clearly shows the Jets don't believe all that much in the "Sanchise" either. Revis is one of the most talented athletes in the sport without question, and he sure is a talent to watch. Well, you don't see him often because he's never thrown towards by any quarterbacks. I don't blame them, because their completion percentage almost always only goes down when he's on the job. Anyways, the card is numbered out of 99 and I absolutely love the Jet-green relic. That color right there has always been my favorite color.

So, this was certainly an awesome trade. Thanks so much Brian for the all of the great stuff! Everyone please go give his blog a look, he's got some great stuff to show off!

See Ya!

A Jets Pickup after a Jets Win!

Hey guys, Drew back here. I got a nice autograph of a player that I've wanted for a while yesterday, and since the Jets had a not so graceful victory over the Browns, I figured I'd share it with you all! From eBay, a new big Jets autograph pickup!

2010 Prestige Darrelle Revis Xtra Points Auto /100

Finally a piece of Revis Island has arrived in my collection! Revis took a long time to holdout, which caused him to be out of shape for the first few weeks, but now he appears to be back on track! His autograph is very sloppy and can be read as "D R #24". It used to be more legible, but he's gotten sloppier over the years. I don't blame him considering he has to sign so many cards!

Anyway, it's so awesome to get an autograph of our Pro Bowl cornerback, and I'm excited to see how his career turns out! See Ya!

How bout' dem Jets!

Congrats to my Jets for beating the Pats 16-9 yesterday! It's about time I do some sports talk, and this is a good start. My boy Mark Sanchez played really well, 14/22 throwing 163 yards and a touchdown! Stats don't say much about what Mark did yesterday, he did make his mistakes, but he looked much better than Brady! The stats overall for the Jets didn't say much, but the defense was amazing! Guys like Kris Jenkins, Kerry Rhodes, David Harris, and maybe the best cover cornerback in the league, Darrelle Revis, who made an awesome interception on Randy Moss yesterday, something like this:

http://www.nfl.com/videos/new-england-patriots/09000d5d812c03b2/Darrelle-Revis-interception

or this...

Now we are undefeated, 2-0, and big news, I may have mentioned it before, but I got tickets to next Sunday's game against the Titans in the Meadowlands. Dad & I have really nice seats we think, after dad went through a very frustrating time finding tickets, but eventually bought them off a guy on Craigslist. We had an option to go to yesterday's game but we decided we didn't want to see the Pats crush the Jets! But today, I celebrated with the very little handful of Jets fans in the school, one of them did go to see the game! Anyway, see ya later!