Card Madness: Part 2 (Round 1.2)

My own March Madness tournament started yesterday, pitting cards from NFL teams against each other to determine this year's football card champion. Four teams advanced yesterday and four teams went home. Let's pit eight more teams against each other in four more matchups today.

Here's our current bracket:

Round 1: New England Patriots vs. Minnesota Vikings

2012 Topps Gold #171 Vince Wilfork vs. 1977 Topps #105 Jim Marshall

We'll start the day's entertainment with a battle between two dominant defensive linemen of their day. I would say the card design on both is above average. The gold version of 2012 is less attractive to me than the base white border, but it is also serial-numbered (467/2012, in this case). On the other hand, the team name in some kind of pennant or banner was standard Topps issue in the 1970s. Neither card has an outstanding photo to distinguish it from the other. In end, this is a solid match-up of pretty good cards, but vintage of a Hall of Fame player will push Minnesota to the victory.

 

Winner: Vikings

 

Round 1: New York Giants vs. Green Bay Packers 

 1991 Topps #19 Carl Banks vs. 1991 Topps #452 Tony Bennett 

Like the previous matchup, this a clash of similar cards. In this case, card design is a perfect wash because the random card generator selected two cards of 1991 Topps. The football edition resembles the baseball edition, but just doesn't quite ring the same. Here we have a couple of pretty good outside linebackers to choose from. However, Carl Banks was the better player and he has a great photo on his card. Tony Bennett has a pretty good photo himself--looking like he is getting ready to pin his ears back and get after the quarterback--and gets a little bonus point for teaching me there is a place called Alligator, Mississippi on the card back, but Banks is the superior card. My Packers go down in the first round.

Winner: Giants

 

Round 1: New York Jets vs. San Francsico 49ers

1995 Classic NFL Experience #73 vs. 2018 Panini Playoff #295 Fred Warner

Ooh, here's another great defensive battle. Ronnie Lott's resume speaks for itself. Fred Warner has been an elite All-Pro linebacker for the past few years. Both have 49er allegiances. 2018 Playoff has a cleaner and bolder design. I'm not a fan of the white stripe and the font with the team name on 1995 NFL Experience. Minus one point for Ronnie Lott looking weird as a Jet and plus one for Fred Warner's rookie card.

Winner: 49ers

Round 1: Cleveland Browns vs. Pittsburgh Steelers

1999 Donruss #29 Ty Detmer vs. 2006 Leaf Rookies and Stars #82 Ben Roethlisberger

The first offensive players of the day make an appearance, and both are quarterbacks. Between Detmer and Roethlisberger, I would only trust Big Ben against the defensive players we've seen so far. That's the only advantage Roethlisberger has in this competition, though. He may be a better quarterback, but I have always been one of world's biggest Ty Detmer fans. And though both cards are easily dated, 1999 Donruss is cleaner and much more attractive than whatever Leaf was trying to do with R&S in 2006.

Winner: Browns

The first half of our bracket has made it through Round 1. We'll see how the rest plays out in the next couple of days.