2026 Topps Flagship Football...Obviously

They’re baaaccckkk….

That is, until Friday, August 21^st, 2026, I hadn’t opened a pack of Topps football cards in 35 or 36 years. I don’t even know if that’s correct. It may be longer. I know that when I was a teen, I stopped collecting football cards at least a few years before I did baseball. It made sense to quit collecting football cards first, what, with needing the money for CDs, movies, and wherever else my limited cash flow was going. It certainly wasn’t to building a savings account when I was sixteen or seventeen.

Look, I’m married to baseball.

I’d struggle to even call football my mistress.

But cards being cards and kids being kids; I’d been a regular collector of football cards since probably 1984. When this set was out.

I still remember opening packs on Michael’s front porch. Looking for the Elway, Dickerson and Dan Marino rookie card. Me really wanting that last Terry Bradshaw. Opening packs on the walk home from Thrift Drug, shoving stale gum in my mouth, discarding the wax pack onto the street like some hooligan. The summer winding down. A Nerf football resting near us instead of the usually ubiquitous wiffle ball and bats. Thoughts of returning to school. I never wanted to go back to school. I’m no fan of summer weather. But I was a big fan of summer freedom.

The coming of football cards meant school.

But the coming of football cards meant the coming of fall. Curfews. Bedtimes. Homework. Shorter days. Longer nights. Yes. But also, crisp weather. Halloween. Thanksgiving. Christmas. Sneaking out to play tackle football in the park without pads. Jackets. Long pants. Anticipating the first flakes falling.

You get the idea.

Well, unless you’re living under a collector’s rock, Topps is back with it’s first flagship football set in 15 years.

And I’m pretty excited for it. I held out when they did the un-licensed-jump-the-gun 2024 design, and I just bought some singles of 2025 Topps Chrome.

I’m not a modern football card novice.

I’d bought some Panini product when they held the football license, but I just don’t like Panini. I find everything they do to look generic with no real thought put into the design.

I don’t like it when you feel the need to put retired players in your base set.

And Panini, it just…it’s not Topps, okay?

It’s funny, or maybe it’s hypocritical; I know that I, and a lot of other older collectors, have bemoaned the fact that Topps/Fanatics are the only game in town with league licenses. I honestly do miss Fleer and Donruss as baseball card producers (You can keep Upper Deck and Score). But I don’t with football. Or I don’t have that same nostalgia. By the time Fleer et al were making licensed football cards, my football card era was coming to an end. Topps was the only game in town for me as a young football collector. Topps is where all the football nostalgia, for me, resides. Since I got back into collecting in 2019, I’ve been waiting for a Topps flagship football set.

And the results are…all right?

Considering Topps’ football card offerings in 2024/205, and their 2025-26 basketball flagship release; I should’ve assumed that they were going to go with the standard Topps design for football flagship as well. I’m not bummed about it per se, and I’m not saying that Topps standardizing their designs in 1991 (for awhile at least) is the reason I stopped with football cards; I’ll just say that it was nice having a whole new design to look forward to up release. Now, if I’m not wild about the Topps baseball design in February, that’ll temper the anticipation for football come August. And this year’s designs are…all right? Honestly the last Topps design that had me truly excited was 2024.

Still love that neon.

And coincidentally 1991 Topps is the 35^th anniversary insert.

My theory on the design is…if you can spend all of that time air brushing college players into their pro unforms, maybe you could’ve come up with a different card design than your other flagships brands. Clearly Fanatics has the money.

Also, I’m a stats man.

It would’ve been cool to see career stats on the back of Topps first flagship set in 11 years.

Very Panini, Topps.

But I digress.

To date I’ve bought a Topps 2026 Flagship hobby box and some blasters.

I’ve pulled some good bells and whistles stuff.

I’m not unsatisfied with my haul. Far from it. It’s been exciting opening 2026 Topps football. Being a Giants fan that Malik Nabers has me quite pleased.

But….

Here comes the dark side to all of this.

When I got back into collecting in 2019, I believe I paid $70 for a hobby box of 2019 Topps Series 1 baseball. I believe pre-sale at my local LCS for Series 2 Topps baseball was $180 for a hobby box and $380 for a jumbo box. 2026 Flagship football was $200/hobby $400/jumbo. That is…well, that’s QUITE the increase in cost over a 6-year period of time. The biggest increases have come over the last few years, or since Fanatics began running the show. The increase in costs also comes with a decrease in packs in hobby boxes, a decrease of cards in those packs, and no real new and flashy inserts in the packs. In fact, it feels as though there is less bang for your buck with the increase in cost.

Because my job is sedentary in nature, I’ve had the chance to watch a lot of collectors rip 2026 Topps football flagship and…a lot of collectors are pissed. As is seemingly the standard now, when I watch someone rip card product, most of them fly passed the base looking for the inserts. Even if it is their first time seeing the product. Base doesn’t seem to matter. Base is an impediment toward the big payoff. The flashy stuff that almost (but never really does) justifies dropping $200/$400 for a box. The payoff is rarely, if ever, there. The frustration mounts as these videos progress. Perhaps it’s easier to be less frustrated with the type of inserts in an $80 box as opposed to those in a $200 box.

While I’ve never opened up card product expecting to profit from it, I can understand collectors’ frustration.

I expressed this to a clerk in a card shop and his answer was a touch…flippant, maybe? He expressed that football collectors maybe don’t have a reason to be upset with the cost of Topps 2026 flagship because Panini product was always sold at a higher cost. And that is true from what I remember. $200. $250 for hobby boxes. And that WAS 6 years ago. The cost of Panini Donruss hobby football kept me away from the product. When I bought any Panini football it was Score. Usually, blasters when I could find them. But here’s the thing with making such a comparison: Panini guaranteed collector’s 2 autograph cards per hobby box. Topps continues to make its standard autograph OR relic in its $200 hobby boxes.

And, let’s be honest, most of the time it’s a relic.

When you’re a collector and you’re opening a $200 hobby box and you get some 4^th round draft picks jersey relic card, along with maybe another numbered card and bunch of unnumbered foil cards and other not-too-exciting inserts…

Yeah…

I don’t really know what the solution is here. For years I’ve listened to a lot of collectors on podcast, blogs, on social media instructing collectors to stop buying wax. Stop wasting money. Buy singles instead. Stop buying wax? You and I know that’s not going to happen. A lot of collectors like opening wax. I like opening wax. Opening wax is a major part of collecting. There’s still that thrill of the unknown when opening wax.

But…$200/box.

Expensive Hobby boxes/Jumbo boxes make lot of modern collecting akin to gambling now. Flying through base cards. Looking for the insert. Scratching the itch. The irritation when it doesn’t happen. There’s a real addiction factor to collecting now. What should happen but won’t is that Topps/Fanatics should lower the cost of base, or offer more of the bells and whistle type cards that they’ve trained so many modern collectors to covet. There’s already have enough high-end product out there for the Seth Meyers and Tedd Lasso’s of the world to buy.

Again, Topps should lower their costs…but they won’t.

I don’t know what that says about their attitude toward the average collector.

It’s sad that this continued increase is going to dampen the experience for a lot of collectors.

Because Topps football is back, baby!

This morning…I feel a small autumnal chill in the air.

And I have a set I’m trying to build.

 

Thanks for reading! Happy collecting!