Football takes over

I used to take Thanksgiving week off from work.

This was my ritual for years, an entire two full decades practically.

I'm no longer comfortable doing that.

Within the last few years, there have been two developments in my job that have made vacations at this time of the year almost impossible.

1. Basketball season starts earlier
2. Football season ends later

Come on, high school sports, rein it in.

I now spend the Thanksgiving period working on the special high school basketball preview section. Out of all of the seasonal sports preview sections we produce, the basketball one is always the most rushed and hectic, thanks to the aforementioned Thanksgiving holiday and high school football's refusal to let go.

The rest of my week will be occupied by the very demanding football.

Our area high school football teams continue to perform better and better in state play. Once, and for many years, high school football season ended in my area around the first weekend of November. Meaningful football games around the holiday was out of the question. Laughable, in fact.

But now, for whatever reason, we now cover teams playing for state championships (my theory is that with the decline in popularity in youth football, schools downstate are having trouble attracting athletes, meanwhile in my distant outpost, folks here have yet to discover the news that the sport can potentially lead to brain damage later in life).

This means planning football previews and football features and football opponent breakdowns and arranging football credentials and football game coverage and football photography, football video, football sidebars, football, football, football, football.

Plus, this week, you've got the pro game in full force. My team, the Buffalo Bills, play not one, but two games this week. They're playing on Thanksgiving against the Dallas Cowboys.

I'll be at work.

Thanks, football.

But anyway, I've been following the Bills a little more this year, probably because they're marginally good. I say marginally because, lordy, I don't think I've ever seen an NFL team with a more favorable schedule than the Bills this year. I think they've played maybe 4 teams with winning records through 12 weeks of the season. They still need to prove they can beat good teams (I mentioned this to a Bills fan the other day and he acted like I just insulted his family).

Still, I'm into it just a little bit -- as much as I can get into football anymore. I do know most of the key players on the team, which I admit has not been the case in recent years. I don't collect current football cards and I just don't know the guys other than what I read at work.

So I was a little surprised, and somewhat pleased when Doug of Sportscards From The Dollar Store, sent me a package recently that included a lot of current Bills. I knew all of them!

These are from Panini Prizm's 2019 set. Prizm works a lot better with football than with baseball, and the fact logos are showing is just part of the reason.

Panini didn't get it quite right because LeSean McCoy and Devin Singletary have never played on the same team together. Singletary is a rookie and McCoy's replacement and they weren't on the team together last year.

Also, Tyree Jackson is part of the new XFL. Just love it when card companies force those rookie cards into the set before they even know where the player's going to be.

This group displays all current Bills. I just watched Lorenzo Alexander get penalized on consecutive kickoff plays. Weee.

So, yeah, I do know my current Bills for the most part (still a bit hazy on the defensive front). And I have football taking over to credit for that.

I'm not even close to being into it as much as when these two guys roamed Orchard Park (and I covered the team).

It's still weird to see retired players like this included in sets dominated by current players.

Doug also sent some Buffalo Sabres, which he often does.

The Sam Reinhart is from last year's Upper Deck MVP set. Those cards feature the player's name pronunciation on the back of the card, which is a welcome addition and I would add SHOULD BE INCLUDED ON THE BACK OF EVERY CARD IN EVERY SET.

The other cards shown here are from this year's O-Pee-Chee set. The Sabres, after starting well, are falling apart. Injuries have something to do with that.

I have a hard time paying attention to the Sabres while the Bills are playing. I usually pick up the Sabres sometime in January, which is also usually too late for them.

OK, enough of that, there's still room for baseball on this blog. In fact, it continues to be 98 percent of this blog, I don't care what the rest of the world is doing.

These are Diamond King base Dodgers needs from this year. I seem to be the only one growing tired of Panini's Diamond King treatment. It's pretty monotonous and has been the last several years. I won't buy it when I see it in stores and I won't until Panini changes it up, which I'm sure they will have trouble doing.

Moving on to Topps products. Two future stars for the Dodgers. Dustin May, you know him and his fabulous red head. Cristian Santana will be occupying third base for L.A. someday soon.

Topps Heritage Minors has league leaders, which seems like a waste of showcasing another minor league player. Are we really interested in minor league leaders?

Also, Pete Alonso led the minors in RBIs last year and there's no picture of him. (Dalbec was second). This card is not legitimate in almost every way. If you can't get the license to do the card properly, find a card you can do properly. Not that hard.

We are at the relic portion of the post.

I own this card already. A second one makes me think I should keep both instead of considering one a duplicate.

See how one bat piece (or table leg piece) is darker than the other? In keeping with the Thanksgiving theme, let's call it a white meat/dark meat situation.

This fancy item of a guy who has been a Cincinnati Red for the last year is one of the few patch cards in my collection.

Since it's a Panini card, I wonder if that blue portion is from the lettering that spells "Los Angeles" or "Dodgers". Are they allowed to use patch portions from the "Dodgers' lettering?

Final relic, final card.

I really like the looks of these. I don't understand how a relic uses the Hometown Heroes title when Hometown Heroes was a set that died after 2013. But I'm a set guy who still thinks it's weird that Topps continues to put out autographs called "All-Time Fan Favorites" with its Archives set even though the All-Time Fan Favorites sets ceased to exist after a three-year run from 2003-05.

Keep the set and its name or come up with another name for your relic and autograph chasers.

Anyway, that's a pretty card.

I hope to get at least a little blog posting in this week. If I manage my time well, I should. But I'll need to focus because football is waiting outside my door just itching to burst in and scoop up all of my time, and probably my Thanksgiving turkey, too.

Still, if the Bills win in the playoffs, all is forgiven.