The Panini America Routing Table Reveals a Scorching Start to the 2011 NFL Season
You want to know how the Panini America football team is passing the time these days? Simply take a look at the images that follow.
Indeed, there’s no rest for the weary in the trading card industry. Just five weeks removed from launching its final football release of the 2010 season, the Panini America gridiron juggernaut is currently working on no less than three different products for the upcoming 2011 season. And all three were on splendid display today at the vaunted Routing Table.
Below you’ll feast on an appetizing array of pre-production paperwork for 2011 Score, 2011 Prestige and 2011 Donruss Elite, highlighted by the first glimpses available anywhere of . . .
- Elite’s new Passing the Torch pairings
- Prestige’s new crop of Rookie Cards, which will be the first available anywhere when they release in April
- A few of Score’s familiar inserts updated with a fresh, new feel
Now as always, this caveat stands: Anything that appears on the Routing Table is typically in an extremely early stage in the production process and will often include “For Position Only” player and team names, “dummy” card-back copy and first-wave photos that will change between now and release time. But there’s still no better place in the industry to get early glances at tomorrow’s most collected cards.
Oh, and Houston Texans fans, don’t get your hopes up. That team name you see on all the Prestige RC designs is strictly “FPO” and by no means an indication of where that particular player will end up on Draft Day.
Enjoy.
The Knight's Lance 
That Elway/Tebow is going to be HILARIOUS if Elway trades Tebow.
I curse the mere thought of that!
Looks great and I really like the player selections for Passing the Torch. I look forward to it coming out.
LOVE all the Donruss Elite. I went back and forth in 2010, but looks like 2011 Elite is going to be great! Can’t wait to see more of that!
I could take or leave the Prestige.
That’s not really what Score is going to look like, is it? I mean, I’m all for using some inspiration from the past, but those kind of look like they are ACTUALLY from the past. For a set aimed more at kids and lower budget collectors, is going old school going to work?
Need…
release…
dates… 🙂
Here you go, man:
2011 Prestige — May 18
2011 Donruss Elite — June 15
2011 Score — June 29
Must…
shop…
then…
I’d love to see a Jahvid Best and Barry Sanders Passing the Torch Auto….or better yet, pull one! Not sure who Suh could be matched up with, but that would be a big hit as well!
So score is going to have the 1990 look back this year? If so, i am in to build the set, woohoo
How many cards are going to be in the Score set? I hope it’s going to be a deep checklist like Score Hockey was this year. When I got the Score Hockey set, one of the first things I thought was “Why don’t they have a football set like this?”
Can the Passing the Torch autos PLEASE be on card? Seeing the “clear sticker” designation is dejecting…
Just talked to Panini America Creative Director Brandon Lesley, who wanted me to reiterate — again — that some of the early designs you see on the Routing Table will most certainly change between now and when that particular product hits.
“We often use unusual colors to designate spot plates/overlays, etc., but that doesn’t mean we’re printing in these colors,” Lesley said. “Obviously, the colors depicted are not necessarily the colours that will be printed.”
Always like Elite year in and year out,passing the Torch look nice ……but always like the rookie design…would like to see more on this product as it progresses……don’t you just like when they get under your skin about Tebow Tracy…lol
Looks good, can’t wait! Really liking the look. I hope some of those white stock cards stay white and not everything with the rainbow foil treatment – just to mix it up. You guys should give out some of these pre-release press run proofs to collectors. That would be AWESOME.
I’ll take the Rodgers Craftsmen proof 🙂 LOVE IT.
Also just wanted to say that the design of the Passing the Torch Duals are some of the cleanest looking, well-designed dual autos I’ve seen. Congrats to you and to us as collectors. Real nice!
Thanks for the feedback, man. I’ll pass along your words to the design team.
From my above post, what do you do with these proofs? If you guys just trash them I’d LOVE to have that Rodgers Craftsmen sheet. Pretty unique and would look cool framed with the crop marks, bleeds, cutlines etc. Toss it on ebay for me 🙂
You know, Chard, we’ve talked about this very stuff in the past. Good ideas; perhaps your comments will cause us to revisit what, exactly, we do with these bad boys.