The football season will be over, but the football cards will keep coming after Super Bowl 53. Back for a third straight year, 2018 Panini Encased football will arrive March 8, promising “increased veteran and retired content, including rare inscriptions from NFL legends.”
2018 Panini Encased Football Basics
Each one pack box of Encased will have five cards, including one BGS-graded on-card autograph, an additional autograph, two memorabilia cards and one base card. Boxes should sell for around $200 upon release.
Autographs
The autographs will come from subsets that include Rookie Endorsements, Rookie Dual Swatch Signatures, Scripted Signatures, Rookie Notable Signatures, Rookie Cap Patch Autographs, Legendary 
Swatch Signatures and Hall of Fame Material Signatures.
New to 2018 Panini Encased football are BGS-graded veteran and retired on-card autographs in Legendary Swatch Signatures and Hall of Fame Material Signatures.
Reserve Signatures will have on-card autographs of current and retired players, all numbered to 50 or less with parallels that include Sapphire (max #’d /25), Gold (max #’d 10), Emerald (max #’d /5) and Diamond (#’d 1/1).
Rookie Endorsement autographs will feature signatures and inscriptions from the 2018 NFL draftees. Regular autos will be numbered to 50 with Sapphire (max #’d /25), Gold (max #’d /10), Emerald (max #’d /5), and Diamond (#’d 1/1) parallels.
Rookie Notable Signatures features a full-body photo with an on-card autograph and will also have a limited number of inscribed autographs with these parallels: Sapphire (max #’d /25), Gold (max #’d /10), Emerald (max #’d /5) and Diamond (#’d 1/1).
Rookie Dual Swatch Signatures will also be signed on-card with some having inscriptions. Also find rare inscribed versions of these cards, which parallel from Sapphire (max #’d /25), Gold (max #’d /10), Emerald (max #’d /5) and Diamond (#’d 1/1).
Rookie Cap Patch Autographs will feature a swatch of a player-worn hat and an autograph. There are NFL shield versions as well.
Hall of Fame Materials Signatures are focused on Canton enshrines. Most are numbered to 25 but there will be Sapphire (max #’d /15), Gold (max #’d /10), Emerald (max #’d /5), and Diamond (#’d 1/1) parallels.
Base and Relic Cards
No word yet on the size of the base set, but it won’t likely be a large one with just one base card per box, on average. There will be autographed versions to make up some of that two-per-box guarantee. Those will be numbered to no more than 20 with Sapphire (#’d /25), Gold (#’d /10), Emerald (#’d /5), and Diamond (#’d 1/1) parallels.
Find multi-swatch memorabilia cards of all the up-and-coming rookies with Rookie Quad Memorabilia (max # /75). These parallel to Sapphire (#’d /25), Gold (#’d /10), Emerald (#’d 5) and Diamond (#’d 1/1).
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