2016 Panini Contenders Football Info, Checklist

Panini Contenders football goes live this weekend with some big hits and limited ticket items.  A full checklist is at the bottom of the page.

2016 Panini Contenders Basics

Set to hit hobby shops Friday, the 2016 product will consist of 24 packs per hobby box, with five cards to a pack. Panini is promising at least five autograph cards in every hobby box (and sometimes six), with at least two of them being on-card signatures. Expect to pay in the $175 to $185 range per box, depending on the retailer.

Base Set

The base set will consist of 390 cards, with Season Tickets, Rookie Tickets, Rookie Ticket variations and Coaches Tickets. Cracked Ice parallels will be numbered to 24, and there will be 1/1 printing plate cards, too.

Autographs, Inserts and More

Autograph cards are usually the big draw for Contenders. Legendary Contenders Autographs will be numbered to 49 or less and depicts some of the great players in the game, like Brett Favre, Roger Staubach, Dan Marino, Barry Sanders, John Elway. Lawrence Taylor and Jerry Rice, to name a few. MVP Contenders Autographs will focus on those players who should be candidates to win the award. This would include players like Derek Carr, Drew Brees, Andrew Luck, Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson and David Johnson. Those also will be numbered to 49 or less.

Draft Class Autographs focus on rookie stars like Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott and Joey Bosa, while Rookie of the Year Contenders will include players like Carson Wentz, Derrick Henry and Jared Goff. These cards also can be found in gold and platinum parallels.

Round Numbers Dual Autographs will be numbered to 99 or less and will combine players drafted in the same round, along with their autographs. A good example would be a combination card of Wentz and Goff.

Rookie Roundup autographs follows the same pattern as the other signature subsets, featuring autos of promising young players. NFL Ink focuses on more established players like Mike Evans, Jordy Nelson, Matt Forte and Brock Osweiler. These cards will be available in gold and platinum parallels.

The Super Bowl MVP Autographs subset celebrates title game stars like Joe Namath, Hines Ward, Troy Aikman and Rodgers.

Inserts will be familiar to collectors, as they will look much like the autograph cards. They will include Legendary Contenders and MVP Contenders, which should fall two per box, along with Round Numbers. Rookie of the Year Contenders should fall three per hobby box, while Touchdown Tandems can be found once in every hobby box.

As an added bonus, some collectors will find hobby exclusive 14-karat 1/1 Golden Ticket cards, while others will find Silver Ticket cards numbered to 2.

You can see boxes and singles on eBay here.

Checklist:

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About Bob D'Angelo

Bob has been a sportswriter and copy editor for more than 45 years and a blogger for two decades. He is celebrating his 60th year of card collecting, and still counts his 1965 Topps Mickey Mantle as his favorite. You can reach him at [email protected].