HOF Spotlight: Steve van Buren

Name: Steve van Buren
Position: Halfback
Pro Career: 1944 – 1951
Team Affiliation(s): Philadelphia Eagles
College: Louisiana State
Induction Class: 1965

Brief Bio: A punishing rusher, Steve van Buren helped to lead an Eagles team that dominated the NFL in the late 1940s. A team that wallowed in mediocracy before van Buren’s arrival suddenly became division runners up for two years, won three straight divisional championships, and won the NFL title in 1948 and 1949. In many ways, the Eagles have never since been as successful since van Buren’s retirement. During van Buren’s brilliant career, he broke the 1,000 rushing yard mark twice, won 4 NFL rushing titles, won an ever elusive “triple crown” in 1945 by leading the NFL in rushing, scoring, and kickoff returns, and was first-team all-NFL six seasons in a row.

Career Stats: 83 games played; 5,860 rushing yards; 69 rushing TDs; 523 receiving yards; 3 receiving TDs; 3 return TDs

Featured Card: 1948 Leaf #22. When Leaf created its first all-football set in 1948, there is no guessing why they included van Buren. The man was dominating the gridiron and leading his team to feats unexplored in the franchise’s past. Trivial Beckett value of this gem is $300. Prices on eBay listings are all over the place, but a majority fall in just below $100. Similar to Sid Luckman, van Buren also has a 1948 Bowman rookie card that can be used as a substitute for the 1948 Leaf if you are just trying to get a basic HOF collection put together.

NOTE: You can find all of my Hall Of Fame Spotlight Features by clicking the HOF Spotlight banner above.

HOF Spotlight: Sid Luckman

Name: Sid Luckman
Position: Quarterback
Pro Career: 1939 – 1950
Team Affiliation(s): Chicago Bears
College: Columbia
Induction Class: 1965

Brief Bio: The first quarterback to champion the T-formation, Sid Luckman was truly a force to be reckoned with. As the #1 draft choice by the Bears in 1939, Luckman at first struggled with the complex formation and was demoted to tailback by legendary coach/owner George Halas. Given a second chance, though, Luckman never looked back. In his 12 professional years, Luckman led the Bears to 4 NFL championships and just missed a fifth. Luckman was named first- or second-team all-league every year from 1940 to 1948 and was named the league’s MVP in 1943, a year in which he threw a record tying 7 touchdowns passes in one game and threw another five to lead the Bears to a commanding 41-21 victory over the Redskins for the championship.

Career Stats: 128 games played; 14,686 passing yards; 137 passing TDs; 4 rushing TDs; 8,862 punting yards; 38.5 yards-per-punt career average; 2 interception TDs

Featured Card: 1948 Leaf #1. In the tail end of a brilliant career, there is no wonder that Luckman was the first card in the 1948 Leaf set (no national football card sets were produced between the 1935 National Chicle set and the 1948 Bowman and Leaf sets). Trivial Beckett value of this card is $400. Most eBay listings fall into a $100 ballpark while some are quite a bit higher and lower, depending mostly upon condition and grade. For an alternative, Luckman also has a 1948 Bowman card that is also considered a rookie card, although the bland black-and-white Bowman seems to command slightly higher prices than the colorful (albeit airbrushed) Leaf offering.

NOTE: You can find all of my Hall Of Fame Spotlight Features by clicking the HOF Spotlight banner above.

Fantasy Focus: Week 5

As you gear up for this weekend’s upcoming games by realigning your fantasy rosters to optimize matchups, let’s take a quick look back at last week’s studs. (Note: Points listed are directly from the First and Goal Fantasy League and may not represent point totals in your individual leagues)

QB: Matt Hasselbeck, Seattle Seahawks — Overcoming a fractured rib (which required pain-killing injections), Hasselbeck looked better than most 100% healthy quarterbacks last week. He completed 18 of 30 passes for 241 yards and 4 touchdowns. He threw no interceptions and even added 24 yards rushing to compile 30 fantasy points. Not bad for an aging quarterback with busted ribs.

RB: Ahmad Bradshaw, New York Giants — One man taking responsibility for raising his fantasy stock on his own (he certainly doesn’t get much public love) was Bradshaw. Rushing for 110 yards and 2 touchdowns, he had a solid outing last week. Add to that his 55 receiving yards and Bradshaw suddenly becomes the top running back last week with 28 fantasy points.

*Fantasy Stud of the Week*
WR: Miles Austin, Dallas Cowboys — SLEEPER ALERT! Austin, the third wide receiver on Dallas’ depth chart, had the single greatest receiving game in the prolific history of the Cowboys. Getting the nod for his first career start due to Roy Williams’ injury, Austin made the most of the opportunity by pulling in 10 receptions for an unprecedented 250 yards, including touchdowns of 59 and 60 yards. He also added 24 return yards for anyone keeping score at home. He may not put up 38 fantasy points every week, but head coach Wade Phillips insists he will continue to see the same amount of playing time in the future.

TE: Kellen Winslow, Tampa Bay Buccaneers — Winslow once again proved that he is must-start fantasy material. In Week 5, he hauled in 9 passes for 102 yards and 2 touchdowns. More of a receiving hybrid than a true tight end, Winslow currently leads all Buccaneer receivers in receptions, yards, and touchdowns. His 22 fantasy points were tops in the league amongst tight ends last week.

K: Lawrence Tynes, New York Giants — After barely missing the top kicking spot for several weeks, Tynes was finally the best fantasy kicker in Week 5 with a 14 point performance after successfully kicking three field goals and adding 5 PATs. An obvious benefactor of being on a good team, Tynes should continue to be one of the top kickers for the rest of the season.

D/ST: Seattle Seahawks — Facing one of the league’s best running backs (Maurice Jones-Drew) and a quarterback that just came off a career game (David Garrard), the Seahawk defense was obviously not intimidated. Racking up 5 sacks, 2 fumble recoveries and a touchdown, all while giving up 0 points to the Jaguars, Seattle cruised to a 25 point fantasy outing last week, more than most offensive weapons were able to muster.

ROOKIE: Jeremy Maclin, Philadelphia Eagles — Another player to benefit from a teammate’s injury (Kevin Curtis) last week was Maclin. The rising star easily had the best game of his young career by grabbing 6 receptions for 142 yards and 2 touchdowns. Despite a lack of size, Maclin appears to have the potential to be a future fantasy stud. His 26 fantasy points last week not only made him the top rookie of the week, it also landed him in the top 10 of all fantasy performers for Week 5.

Check back next week for another edition of Fantasy Focus as we recognize the week’s best fantasy performers. Best of luck to you in your respective fantasy football leagues!

Note: To quickly view all of my Fantasy Focus posts, simply click the Fantasy Focus banner at the top of any such post!

Laziness Hits a New Low

In the past several months around the sports card blogosphere, a lot of a time has been spent writing and reading about the companies’ lackluster design attempts and the recycling of those poor design styles. This topic has recently been touched on a lot with the announcement that Upper Deck has now lost its NBA and MLB licenses in just a few months span. I often hear people complain that year after year, certain product lines continually reuse the same awful card designs, despite critical reviews and slumping sales.

I try not to get too worked up about brands being similar two or more years in a row. After all, this has been happening for a long time. In the 1960s and 70s, card companies often reused photographs from one year to the next, let alone had similar card designs. I do, however, have an issue with several products in the same year that look almost identical, and I’m not talking about Upper Deck’s flagship being the same for each major sport in a given year. This year, in the span of just over a month, Panini will release four separate football products. Not only do 2009 Score and 2009 (Leaf) Rookies & Stars have spin off products that are essentially glorified parallel sets (Score Inscriptions and Rookies & Stars Longevity, respectively), they also look like rip-offs of each other. Take the images below for an exhibit. The top row features scans of 2009 Score inserts while the bottom row shows 2009 Rookies & Stars inserts:

 

Each tiny thumbnail leads to a larger image

Notice any similarities? Let’s see…photo cut-out of player on very loud background…check. Random “paint splashes” and other crazy shapes…check. Needless diagonal lines poorly incorporated into the design…check. Mostly white background with either odd pastel or maybe team colors on aforementioned splashes and shapes…check. Some cards incorporating a design that only shows a cut-out of the player from the waist up…check. Text moving in multiple directions on the same card…check. Set logo appearing in an area of the card where it could easily be swaped out for the logo of another set produced by the same company…check.

To me, what we have here is just poor decision making. When I first saw images from 2009 Score, I admit I liked it. There is a huge movement towards guaranteed “hits” and high-end products while kids and budget collectors (especially in today’s economy) are left with very few collecting options. 2009 Score had a low-end feel to it, and a price point to match. Cool. Then 2009 Leaf Rookies and Stars came out and I noticed a troubling thing. They are essentially the exact same product. The only difference? Leaf Rookies and Stars promises a bunch more hits and each box will yield you less than half as many cards as a box of Score, but will cost you more than twice as much. So really, Panini has acquired two fairly old name brands that were very different, completely destroyed both of them, and then passed them off as Crap and Crap Deluxe, because R&S is really just Score with more inserts and hits. I can understand going through a dry spell. I’m sure we’ve all experienced writer’s block or creative constipation. But it appears as though Panini has one guy in charge of creating designs for all non-Donruss brands and he was only able to come up with one concept…so he just made some subtle differences and passed it off as two separate product lines. Poor form, Panini. Poor form.

Remember when Score and Leaf Rookies & Stars were two separate entities and appealed to different markets while looking completely different…because they really were two separate products? I do:

Click each image to view a full sized and original scan

HOF Spotlight: Sammy Baugh

Name:“Slingin’” Sammy Baugh
Position: Quarterback
Pro Career: 1937 – 1952
Team Affiliation(s): Washington Redskins
College: Texas Christian
Induction Class: 1963 – Charter Member

Brief Bio: In a time when football players were versatile athletes, Sammy Baugh was a prolific quarterback, punter, and defensive back. In 1943, Baugh led the league in passing, pass interceptions, and punting to become the first player to win a triple crown. Slingin’ Sammy changed the face of professional football from a grind-it-out ground game to one that embraced and flourished via aerial passing. To this day, Baugh is considered to be one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.

Career Stats: 165 games played, 21,886 passing yards; 187 passing TDs; 56.5% completion percentage; 31 interceptions (11 in 1943); 45.1 punting average.

Featured Card: 1948 Leaf #34. Baugh had already been playing for several years, but many consider this to be one of his rookie cards (along with the 1948 Bowman). Trivial Beckett Value is $600. You can find one on eBay for much less, but as with any vintage card, condition is a huge factor. Use caution when looking to purchase an old card like this one. Look for one that is graded by a reputable company, such as PSA.