A Look into my Collection - 2001 Pacific

In my last post, I commented that I liked having backgrounds on cards, and like to see more of the play around the player.

I recently went through my whole collection and saw all sorts of wonderful cards that should be shown more. 

One of the sets that really stood out to me was the 2001 Pacific set. Writing this post, I'm sure it stands out to my because of one game that the photographer took many great pictures at, that were used for cards.

Looking at the Browns cards in this set, here they are in the order that I like them best at this moment in time.

Okay, how can I not like this card? It is in a noticeable snowfall, but the picture clearly shows David Patten watching the ball come to him through the air as the safety, Blaine Bishop, is bearing down on him. (I have to ignore the Pacific logo right on the ball.)

I love seeing the bundled-up people on the sideline.

Looking at the boxscore info at the Pro Football Reference site, I'm pretty sure this game was played in Cleveland on December 17, 2000, with a 20 degree temperature and winds of 35 mph.

The Browns lost 24-0 to the Tennessee Titans. Patten had 3 receptions for 26 yards in the game.

The 2000 season was Patten's only year with the Browns.

I showed a parallel to this card in a recent post. I just love the action in the card, running down the sideline with two Bengals coming in to make a tackle.

I don't know what happened in this play, but it doesn't look like he's about to head out of bounds with the ball.

From the back of the card, you can see that Dawson only played in 2 games during the 2000 season. He went on IR for the rest of the season on September 20th with a broken collarbone.

The photo on the front of the card would have come from the September 10th game in Cincinnati, a 24-7 win for the Browns. Dawson had 3 receptions for 14 yards in the game.

I love this photo of a fullback with the ball, fighting for whatever yardage he can get before he goes down.

Since there don't appear to be a whole bunch of linemen in the photo, it doesn't look likes he's trying to charge into the line, looking for a first down.

From looking at the 2000 schedule, the Browns played the Cardinals during Week 6, in Arizona, on October 8th. It was a 29-21 loss.

I found it interesting that Edwards only had two carries during the 2000 season. In the game against the Cardinals, he had 2 receptions for 17 yards.

This card brings us back to the snow game against Tennessee. It's a very hectic photo of Travis Prentice running the ball in a crowded space. I love the background with Marc Edwards on the ground.

Travis Prentice had 12 carries for 32 yards in the game, as well as 2 receptions for 13 yards. Unfortunately, he also had a lost fumble in the game.

I really like this photo of Darrin Chiaverini being tackled with the ball. It seems like an interesting photo for the card.

Looking at the Browns 2000 schedule, they didn't play the Chargers at all in the regular or preseason. They did play the Chargers in San Diego during the 1999 season, losing 23-10. 

Chiaverini had 4 receptions for 46 yards in the 1999 loss to the Chargers.

Tim Couch took a lot of sacks during his time in Cleveland. I like this photo of him getting ready to throw the ball with Gary Walker being blocked behind him.

The Browns played the Jaguars twice in 2000, but Tim Couch did not play in the December game in Jacksonville.

The Jaguars game in Cleveland was their season opener, a 27-7 loss. Tim Couch was sacked once, and it wasn't by Gary Walker.

Again, another great photo of receiver Dennis Northcutt running with the ball, and a couple of Giants diving and reaching behind him.

The Browns hosted the Giants on November 5th, a 24-3 loss.

Northcutt had 3 receptions for 34 yards in the game. He also had one punt return for 12 yards.

Another nice action photo of a running Errict Rhett being tackled by what appears to be LeRoy Butler of the Packers.

The Browns played the Packers in Green Bay for their final 2000 preseason game, losing 34-33.

Rhett was signed as a free agent for the 2000 season. In the Packers exhibition game, he ran for 55 yards on 7 carries.

Sadly, after 5 games with the Browns, Rhett was put on IR on October 3, 2000, with a torn ligament in his left midfoot.  That was the end of his NFL career.

This is a nice clean photo of Spergon Wynn, with what appears to be good blocking in front of him, and a running back ready to pick up anyone that makes it through his blindside.

As a sixth round pick, Wynn was one of the quarterbacks drafted in the 2000 draft ahead of Tom Brady.

Spergon Wynn played in 7 games during the 2000 season, starting one of them. The photo on the front of his card could be from his start, at home against the Bengals, on October 29, 2000.

Another card from the snow game against the Titans. It is a great photo of Aaron Shea, and I really love seeing the frozen ground under, and around his feet.

Aaron Shea caught 2 passes for 8 yards in that Titans game.

Another good photo from the Titans game. I love how clear Kevin Johnson and his face are in this one.

Johnson only had 2 receptions for 3 yards in this season finale.

Doug Pederson started the finale against the Titans. Although it is a pretty traditional photo of a quarterback in the backfield, the snow adds to it a lot.

Once Tim Couch was placed on IR after starting the first seven games of the 2000 season, Doug Pederson wound up starting 8 of the 9 remaining games of the season. 

Pederson is probably better known for being a head coach in the NFL for 8 years, winning a Super Bowl with the Eagles in 2017.

Another snow photo from the Titans game. with Jamel White carrying the ball, and appearing to look at the defender whose arm you can see on the left edge of the card. This one might be higher on a different day that I am ranking these cards.

Jamel White had 4 carries for 3 yards, and 2 receptions for 12 yards in the season finale against the Titans. He also returned two kickoffs for 38 yards.

A good photo of Kevin Thompson on this card, but not very lively compared to the rest of the team's cards.

I have no idea when the photo would have been taken. As you can see from the stats on the back of his card, he only had one pass attempt in the 2000 season, which was completed for 8 yards. He also fumbled once, but recovered his own fumble.

Thompson was signed by the Browns on September 13, 2000, and placed on IR with an ankle injury on December 13, 2000. His one NFL appearance was for the final Browns drive of the December 3rd game at Jacksonville. He went on to play one season for the Cologne Centurions in NFL Europe, and two seasons with the Los Angeles Avengers in the Arena League.

I don't own the base card for Bobby Brown, so I'm showing the Hobby LTD parallel card that I own.

Obviously it is another card from the Titans game in the snow. His pants seem to blend in with the snow, and the Hobby LTD writing going across the card.

Eventually I will get his actual base card from the set.

Bobby's prerogative? Oh, look at that clever write-up to start the back of his card.

Brown was targeted 4 times in the season finale, catching 1 pass for 6 yards.

The 2000 season was his only season playing in the NFL.

Since this was the last of the Browns team cards in the set, I just counted and saw that seven of the fifteen cards were taken at the December Titans game in the snow.

This draft pick card isn't that exciting. It doesn't mention the Browns drafting him, but is still part of my collection since he was drafted by them.

I don't yet own the card for the other Browns draft pick in the set, but I can borrow its scan from The Trading Card Database.

A much nicer photo on this draft pick card, but again the rookie cards say nothing about who drafted them. I would assume this was due to the set's release date.

I still need to get a copy of this card for my collection.

Another thing that I liked in a lot of cards from this set is the inset photo on the back of the card that mostly show helmetless players. It is good to get a look at the players' faces.

I hope you enjoyed this look at the Browns cards in the 2001 Pacific set.

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While previewing this post before posting it, it occured to me that if they had seven Browns photos from the snowy Titans game, that maybe there are Titans photos used from the same game. It never really occurred to me to look.

I looked, and found the following:

Six of the Titans fourteen cards came from the Browns game. None are needed for my collection, but it was nice to see.

My first look at 2026 Topps Flagship Football

I was out shopping the other night, and came across some 2026 Topps Flagship Football at Walmart. I decided to pick some up and take a look at it.

Let's see, 59 cards, and 32 teams in the NFL. I guess I want to get two Browns cards in the box to match (alright, very slightly beat) the odds. I would prefer to get three or more, but I don't usually get lucky like that.

Looking at the checklist for the set, there are 400 cards. There are 15 Browns cards, one of which is a League Leaders card.

Opening the box up, here's the first card I see.

Now to show the cards by twos, as I see them.

Hey! My first Browns cards right at the beginning of the pack! All right!

Carson Schwesinger's card has the Topps All-Rookie Team logo right under the Topps logo.

The card fronts seem to share the baseball card fronts. I'm a little indifferent to them. I've seen better, but I've also seen worse. I appreciate that the name, team and position are easily identifiable. I'm also happy that these aren't chrome type cards. I'm getting a little sick of the chrome type cards, but will of course still pick them up for my collection.

Since I've got an offensive and defensive player, let's see what they show for their backs.

They show one year of stats, and the career totals. (Of course Schwesinger only has one year of stats in his career.) They also have a small write-up on the player. I don't hate the backs, but I think that it will depend on how generic the write-ups get.

The Packers white helmet just doesn't look right. Even on a while uniform, I think I would prefer their standard helmet.

Another All-Rookie Team logo on Tyler Shough's card.

So many of those NFL Canada commercials that I have seen have taught me that Chuba Hubbard is Canadian.

Another All-Rookie Team card.

A couple of nice action shots running with the ball.

McLaurin watching the ball coming in to him. I like seeing it.

Actually, I just like these cards having backgrounds, even if they are blurred a bit behind the player.

Woo hoo! There's a second Browns cards.

Let's see the back of the shared Leaders card.

I'm kind of surprised they separated the leaders cards into AFC and NFC cards.

Once again, I love the eyes on the ball into the hands on the Trey McBride card.

Two really good players. I really hate that Ja'Marr Chase is in the Browns division, and that they have to play against him twice a year.

I like Thuney's horizontal card, showing both arms extended, with the quarterback he's protecting just sneaking in on the right hand side of the card.

Well, I got the NFC Sack Leaders card to go with the AFC one earlier.

The Ricky Pearsall photo is another good use for a horizontal card.

It seems interesting to me that the Future Stars logo isn't on a rookie player. McMillan caught 70 passes for 1014 yards, and 7 touchdowns in his rookie year.

The Bills card is my first team card. The back just gives a small blurb about the two players on the front of the card, Josh Allen and James Cook. I like the photo.

Again, I like the photos on these cards. They are cropped to the player, not cutting off limbs, which is good, but I do miss seeing more of the play around the player.

And then we get to these cards that cut off portions of the player. No matter, I love the ball extension on Luke McCaffrey's card. Good use of breaking the frame of the card.

A couple of good young players. Another all white Packers card. Good quarterback photo for Drake Maye.

I'm happy to see lineman cards. When at games, I've been known to miss some nice plays because I was too busy watching the action on the line of scrimmage.

I remember that Jordan Mailata was the Eagles nominee last year for the Walter Payton Man of the Year award, and that he's Australian.

And we've now hit the rookie card section of the pack. Coleman was a 4th round pick, while Beck was a 3rd round pick.

I developed a bit of a soft spot for the Cardinals while my mom was living in Arizona. I hope that Beck does well for them.

Both receivers were 1st round picks for their teams. It is nice to see the rookies in their team's uniforms, not combine photos in shorts and numbered t-shirts.

A nice photo of De'Zhaun Stripling, a 2nd round draft pick, while Faulk was a 1st round pick.

Johnson was a 1st round pick, while Wetjen was a 3rd round pick.

Terrell was a 2nd round pick, while McGowan was a 7th round pick.

When it comes to having a 7th round pick included in the set, I wonder what the thought process is on the selection of players for the set. McGowan was the first non-lineman offensive player the Colts drafted this year. Maybe Topps wanted to make sure they had someone on a card that might put up stats during the season.

Both of these players are also 7th round picks. Smith was, again, the first non-lineman offensive player that the Cowboys drafted, while Morton, a quarterback, was selected for the set along with a 3rd round TE from Notre Dame.

The last base rookie card, Sonny Styles, was a 1st round pick.

And this led us to the start of the parallels and inserts in the pack.

I'm not sure what parallel type this is for Colston Loveland, but he finished his first year with the Bears and also got a Future Stars banner from Topps.

More parallels. Singleton was a 5th round pick, and for the quarterback leaders card, they seem to be concentrating on an easy stat, TD passes, but they don't have one for passing yards, or QB rating. Seems interesting, and a little simple, to me.

For the inserts, I'll show the back as well. I kind of like the idea of the Profiles cards. It makes for a good idea for an insert set, but it also depends on what the commentary actually is.

Okay, I really like the Ring of Honor back. It gives a lot of good information on the game and player being showcased.

For the Profiles card, I like the info or description in the player file, but the analyst insights really seem like more of a hype show than actual analysis. But I guess that fits with how I've seen Kyle Brandt speak on Good Morning Football.

35th Anniversary cards in the 1991 design style. I don't mind them, but if I were a set collector, I think I would prefer two other base cards than having these.

Ted Hurst was a 3rd round pick in the draft.

Like the base cards, they have one year and career totals on the back. Nothing special for these card backs. 

Also, like the base cards, they show the 2025 stats from college, along with the college totals, but they don't mention on the back that these stats were with a different team than they are photographed in. I think I would have preferred having the college, or team, listed on the line with the season stats.

I like this Pressure Cookers insert card. It is shiny, not chrome.  However, do I need to have 12 parallels available for the regular insert card?

Since I have time in writing this, and since I wanted to make sure that I got at least two Browns cards in my pack, I'm going to see how evenly split the cards were among the teams.

There are 59 cards, three of which have three players on, so there will be 65 players represented. Here is what I counted for their team representation:

5 cards - Panthers

3 cards - 49ers, Bears, Commanders, Cowboys, Eagles, Falcons, Packers, Patriots, Rams

2 cards - Bills, Broncos, Browns, Cardinals, Chiefs, Colts,  Giants, Lions, Raiders, Saints, Texans, Titans

1 card - Bengals, Bucanneers, Chargers, Dolphins, Jets, Ravens, Seahawks, Steelers, Vikings

0 cards - Jaguars

Ouch, that would have hurt if I was a Jaguars fan.

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Overall, I am happy with my purchase.  I think it looks like a nice return to licensing set from Topps. I may buy a little more of it, but I don't think that I will be trying to complete the set. I will be looking for all of the Browns cards.