Even though I absolutely HATE the awful name of this set, its hard to argue that it isnt one worth looking forward to. Immaculate has been a product that people seem to enjoy in all the sports its offered, despite some issues with it being truly a product worth raving about. Last year’s version was quite the surprise, with a lot of non-RC on card content, and some really good looking cards. There were still stickers in the product, which took away from the overall potential, but as a whole it was one of the best sets Panini put out.

Check out some of the stunning cards from 2014:

2014 Immaculate Teddy Bridgewater NFL Logo Auto 1/1

2014 Immaculate Odell Beckham Jr Auto Jumbo Logo Patch 1/1

2014 Immaculate Tom Brady Auto Jumbo Patch /49 – Lots of high profile stickers in this set

2014 Immaculate Andrew Luck Auto Patch /25

This year, Panini has struggled with just about everything that has to do with football. On card content for the rookie class has dropped to almost nothing, and design as a whole has been a complete fucking disaster. They may have just released the worst product of the last 15 years with Spectra football, and that scared in looking ahead to sets that will anchor their calendar. Luckily for us, the Football team decided to yield to a much more talented Basketball team, copying the first cards previewed verbatim.

These cards look pretty tremendous, as they did in Basketball, and if we are lucky, they will copy a lot of the other great elements as well. Basketball, as a whole, tends to find ways to put out good looking designs much more frequently than Football, and it shows with products that have origins there. Of course, we are likely in for more of those disgusting signed scraps of black construction paper, but we can hope that the stupidity of previous sets is minimized by a product jam packed with other great stuff. Topps has already previewed a new product called “Definitive Collection” which looks to be something that could rival National Treasures as their final set under the current NFLPA license. Immaculate will likely be out by then, as will Flawless, and only then will we be able to see how everything measures up.

Last year, Flawless offered ZERO of the cards from this preview, with very few really stunning cards that couldnt be found anywhere else. In what I consider to be a HORRIBLE decision, Immaculate is where those cards were used, despite Flawless costing 1500 a box. Immaculate offers the content that should be available in a top shelf price tagged product like Flawless, and yet, here we are again. Obviously, when Panini solicits the full product, we will have more to judge as to the potential merit of the set.