Non-Iowa Thursday: Lazy Panini Checklists

 I recently bought a hanger pack of 2022 Panini Absolute Retail at Target, hoping to snag a few Iowa Connections.  I bought it without reviewing the checklist beforehand but figured I had chances at 5-11 different connections.  There were in fact only 4 (Burrow, Montgomery, Hockenson, Hall).  No Purdy, Linderbaum, Kolar, Goodson, Winfrey amongst the rookies, or Fant, Johnson, Kittle, Hyde or Wirfs amonst the veterans.

I also pulled 0 of the 4.

This can be ok if I pull enough trade bait to pick up the others, but I may have opened the worst pack.  Stafford and Kelce were the inserts and the only saving grace was a Hutchinson Introductions card and a Kenneth Walker RC.  

When entered them on TCDB, I noticed that this was another lazy Panini checklist.  Absolute is a 200 card set with 100 veterans and 100 rookies.  With 32 teams, that means we have three players plus 4 extras.  When did Panini make the list?  Was Panini smart with their extra four picks?  Did they pick the right three players on each team?  

Let's start with when Panini made the checklist.  Obviously they have to make it early enough to get the printers and finding images, etc.  What clues do we have about the timing of this?  First, as mentioned above there is no Brock Purdy, who'd they would love to be a part of the set.  Purdy made his 1st appearance on December 4th, so it had to be before that.  

The biggest clue we have are the traded players who Panini didn't even bother moving.  Marquise Brown and A.J. Brown both were traded during the 2022 NFL draft.  However, since Panini groups cards by team, you can see A.J. with the Titans group and Marquise with the Ravens.  

So its safe to say the original checklist was made before the NFL draft.  The rookie checklist looks to be built by some sort of algorithm before the draft, with QBs highly rated, WRs and RBs boosted, and then top 1st round picks.  The first 42 cards are ordered this way, and with Hutchinson coming in higher than Walker that is why I said pre-draft.  The rest of the 58 rookies are ordered alphabetically by first name (because?), and use the same-ish algorithm which I'll describe as "1st Round picks, RBs and WRs.  No QBs in that last group, as they were over-represented in the first group of rookies.

Except for that 3rd string QB who was the absolute last pick of the draft.

There is one exception here.  In the draft there was one big surprise 1st Round pick, and his name was Cole Strange.  Strange fits the algorithm and is included BUT he breaks the sorting rule as he was inserted between Isaiah Likely and Jalen Pitre.

So, the question is who did Bill Belichick knock off the Absolute checklist with his Strange pick?  Here are the players drafted between those two alphabetically:

We can removed Spiller and Dotson as they are part of the elite 42.  Camarda is out, no special teams allowed.  Thomas and Jones are defense drafted after the 3rd, so they are out (also seems to be a LB bump). Also no TEs beyond the 3rd so no Ferguson.

That leaves us with Isiah Pacheco and Jalen Nailor.  Its really a toss up between the two as Panini has put both in Donruss Elite, Nailor in Mosaic, and Pacheco in XR.  I'll say Nailor, but it is a guess.

Now back to the veterans.  How did Panini do for each team?  To start off, Tennessee and Baltimore are screwed right away losing AJ and Marquise Brown leaving them with only 2 cards each.  

As for the three players to each team, it leans heavily QB/RB/WR.  Where the pattern breaks is:

• Atlanta: Pitts over WR
• Houston: Greenard over RB (David Johnson?)
• Dallas: Schultz over RB (Zeke! Pollard!)
• Buffalo: Knox over RB
• Carolina: Anderson over QB (tough look for Darnold, only QB to not make it)
• Kansas City: Bolton over RB (Chris Jones? Frank Clark?)
• Detroit: Hockenson over WR (Amon-Ra St. Brown!)
• Miami: Waddle over RB
• San Francisco: Bosa over RB
• Green Bay: Alexander over WR (Lazard?)
• New England: McCourty over WR
• Seattle: Lockett over RB (Also Luck over Stone)

Mostly defensible picks, except for Dallas. I love Hock, but Detroit might be wrong as well.  Makes me wonder how far back the checklist was made considering that Brown was a late bloomer last season and Panini's big preference for WRs over TEs...

So, who were the 4 extra players?  

1. Patrick Surtain
2. Micah Parsons
3. Aaron Donald
4. Darren Waller

Looks like they tried to make up on some missing groups; defense and tight end.  I'd had preferred Kittle to Waller, but that's me.  

In conclusion, the biggest losers of this set creation process are Brock Purdy, Amon-Ra St. Brown, George Kittle, Tony Pollard and Ezekiel Elliott, any non-Top 5 defensive player, Isaiah Pacheco or Jalen Nailor, Sam Darnold and Geno Stone.  

Big winners: Cole Strange, Devin McCourty, Nick Bolton, Jonathan Greenard, Dalton Schultz and Dawson Knox.

Ok, one last note.  Jonathan Greenard had 0 cards in 2021.  He had a fine year, starting 12 games and getting 8 sacks placing him in 32nd place for the league.  Houston is so terrible that be was one of their top 3 most collectable players (as deemed by Panini), and I propose the worst card in this set. 

Guess who hit his parallel in his one pack.  This guy.