The XFL is determined to try playing another season in 2023, beginning this weekend with eight teams spread across the country. It’s a reboot for the league that began with some promise but was doomed by the pandemic after a shortened five-week campaign in 2020. As an offshoot to Vince McMahon’s WWE entertainment empire, the XFL completed a long-ago 2001 season before going dormant for nearly a generation.
(Pop Quiz: Don’t look it up! Try to name the 2001 XFL Champion.
Answer: The Los Angeles Xtreme.)
An attempted bond with the Canadian Football League (CFL) for a revived 2022 XFL season fell through. Like the sad previous Alliance of American Football (AAF) the year before, the 2020 XFL failed to finish the season, suspending operations on March 12, 2020. The reasons were different, since the AAF came to grief financially, while the XFL quit because of a public health emergency.
Still the results were essentially the same:
Disappointed players, coaches, fans, stadium personnel, families, the media, and pretty much anyone who follows or cares about the state of American professional football. But also like the AAF, the 2020 XFL left behind an intriguing Topps card set—split into two parts—the 175-card base set, and a 25 card “Stars of the XFL” series of XFL players with past NFL experience.
On top of that, there were the certified autograph cards and five weeks’ worth of Topps Now cards, of which there were 30 separate items. Overall, the set features players ranging from cast-off veterans hungry for a second chance to rookies fresh from the collegiate ranks.
In the former category, there were players such as the St. Louis BattleHawks receiver L’Damian Washington, who at age 29 had bounced around the NFL, CFL, and AAF, competing at wide out for a variety of teams, none of which clicked. In the latter category, there was the star West Virginia cornerback Kenny Robinson, kicked out of college after his sophomore year for academic cheating.
Though still having college eligibility, Robinson signed with the BattleHawks to help support his ailing mother, and in the last game of the XFL’s abbreviated 2020 season, was nominated for Player of the Week, on recording both a sack and an interception against the D. C. Defenders.
As a secondary league in a tough professional game, the XFL featured many players with tales of career near-misses, forced injury interruptions, overlooked talent, and just plain snake-bitten unlucky snafus, all competing for roster spots. When the 2020 XFL debuted, there were 416 players on the field or the sidelines for the eight separate teams. On every squad, veterans outnumbered the tyros by far.
But after securing another chance at making it, they saw the bottom fall out of the XFL, thanks to a microbe so small 100 million would fit on the head of a pin.
While your heart automatically goes out to every guy who lost a shot at performing nationally, the cards they left behind are what draws our attention at this retrospective juncture. They are, in short, not too bad.
The Topps 2020 XFL set is well designed, competently written and edited, colorful, and apparently error-free. The cards are standard-sized, glossy, and contain a whole host of players who will likely never appear on a card again.
The base cards feature players from all eight of the 2020 XFL squads, and reach deep into the 52 man rosters. It has the standard 21st century Topps “bells and whistles,” from autograph cards to colored parallels. The parallel cards are an indication of rarity, with the green meaning there are 99 such cards for the player in the set, on up to a gold card, of which there is but one. Good luck in your search.
This color coding applies to the autograph cards too, as Topps did its usual efficient job of salting the hoard with potential pack-opening super wows and yowzers.
The packs came ten to a blaster box (100 cards), and 24 packs (240 cards) to a hobby box. At this writing, a hobby box costs about $60-$80 and the slightly rarer blaster boxes run for just about half that.
Topps also used its NOW platform to promote the 2019 AAF set, something was reprised with their 2020 XFL series. The print-on-demand cards are designed to be issued on a week-to-week basis as the season progresses. In theory, this can result in a super rare card of a future star, or just a rare card, period.
Topps offered NOW cards at a cost of $9.99 each, and waited for orders for base cards, parallels and autographs that were offered. When the purchase window closed, Topps published the size of the run. In that way, you knew how many specimens of every Topps Now card existed. It’s mainly intended for hobbyists, but fans of particular players could have a large impact on buying orders. You want to create a card market hotshot out of your guy? Buy a bunch and hang on.
Quarterback P. J. Walker of the Houston Roughnecks was XFL passing leader at the time his Topps Now (No. 27) card was issued. That one might actually turn a profit, as he has since become a starter for the Carolina Panthers.
Walker also had autographs in the regular set.
There were other names in the set we’ve come to know better since 2020.
Washington Commanders quarterback Taylor Heinicke is also a Topps XFL veteran, having also played for the BattleHawks.
Coaches had cards in the set, including such gridiron worthies as Winston Moss (No. 15), June Jones (No. 99), and Jerry Glanville, (No. 103).
You have to hand it to those hopeful strivers in pursuit of the dream, players and coaches alike. Can you win or not in the game of professional football?
The XFL gave ‘em all a shot.
Like the dreams of the journeymen players and coaches, it would be no stretch to say that the XFL card set issued by Topps in 2020 was yet another casualty of the runaway virus. The cards never got much attention as a consequence of the premature folding of the league, and Topps Now was cut off in mid-season.
As far as the cards go, is there much worth buying and hanging on to? Hard to tell quite yet, but probably unlikely.
In the case of the iteration of the XFL that occurred in 2001, the answer is unfortunately no. Almost none of the cards from that 100 card Topps XFL set cost more than a dollar now.
The few exceptions include cards of Rod Smart, (the “He Hate me” guy), former UCLA star Tommy Maddox, and 1994 Heisman winner Rashaan Salaam, and even those can be had on the cheap.
There’s a 1950s comic book story by Disney artist Carl Barks, in which Uncle Scrooge buys every 1916 US quarter that has ever been minted. Soon enough, Scrooge snags all of them, cornering the market. He then sinks all but one into the sea outside Duckburg, and presto! Scrooge now owns the most valuable coin in the world! It’s so valuable, in fact, he’s the only person rich enough to buy it!
Unless an enterprising billionaire collector comes along to do the same with the 2020 XFL set, in 20 years it’ll probably be only slightly more valuable across the product line than it happens to be today.
Will there be 2023 XFL trading cards? Stay tuned.
Related Stories:
Topps Plans 2020 XFL Card Set
Upper Deck’s 2023 USFL Cards: Revived League Merits Boutique Set
2020 Donruss Football Preview
Sports Card Release Calendar: 8/5/20 – 8/18/20
What’s Hot: Football Rises Up as Sports Calendar Overfloweth
Briefcases are Back: 2020 Panini Flawless Football Preview
Sports Card Release Calendar 5/5/21 – 5/25/21
XFL: Why I Still Love He Hate Me
