There are a lot of products made by Panini, which illicit a question of why they exist. Sets like Prominence, Hot Rookies and Momentum have all gone to that space for me. However, of all of those products, many of them are or will be one and done. Totally Certified is easily the one that everyone should have a hearty chuckle over, because even after all these years of horrid performance, it still exists. It sold poorly in 2011, 2012, and 2013, but that’s no matter for Panini! Bring it back again!

Check out this disaster in all its shitty glory:

2014 Totally Certified Kelvin Benjamin Auto Patch /10

2014 Totally Certified Johnny Manziel Auto Patch

2014 Totally Certified Sammy Watkins Auto

2014 Totally Certified John Brown Auto RC /10

You know things are getting a bit desperate when it is the first product to voluntarily be released on a Monday in as long as I can remember. Each card looks worse than the next, and dont even get me started on the names they chose for the inserts. I mean, who could fault a company for releasing a subset named "AWESOME AUTOGRAPHS!" I cant make this shit up, they actually went there.

The most disheartening thing about this product is not the awful names though, believe it or not. Even though they named a rookie autograph set "Rookie Penmanship," that is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is how bad the cards look. Separated signature areas, off center swatches, and odd vertical presentations are only the start of it.

In fact, I cannot fathom why Panini is so obsessed with making sure every sticker auto that they use (and its a lot of them), is completely separated off from every design. That only speaks to how poor their design team really is, as there are so many methods to ensure that the autograph can be seen clearly without walling it off and obscuring the rest of the card. I dont know about you, but I would really like to see a full player shot.

Panini sucks at designing cards. They just do. Although they have their wins here and there, the body of work is fucking horrendous. I would trust Adrian Peterson with my children before I trust Panini designing a nice looking trading card. That is NOT going too far, that is what their track record represents. I mean, it is horrifying to believe that this design was presented in a production meeting and green lit for the set. Seriously.

I dont know what it is about them, but they just cant get it right. Totally Certified is totally not worth the cardboard it is printed on. Until someone explains what makes something TOTALLY certfied over just regular certified, I will continue to abhor this product. What is being certified so poorly that it needs to be Totally Certified? Doesnt make any fucking sense.