Brownies and Bengals from Justin and Jaybarkerfan

A long while back (feels like years ago since I haven't posted in a while, but I guess it was late January), Jaybarkerfan made a post indicating that his NBA and NFL piles were up for grabs.  As I am never one to turn down Browns and can trade/sell Bengals locally, I claimed those teams, and a week later a bunch of nifty Ohio based NFL cards were in my possession.

That was not the end of the usefullness of that post for me though, as early this month I received an email with a new (to me anyways) blogger named Justin of Mets Cardboard.  He too had some NFL cards in his possession, and like a lot of card bloggers wanted them gone in return for baseball stuff.  As one of the few guys who delves into primarily football, I'm always happy to make that trade, and so a week later I had some Bengals and Browns from Justin as well!

So one blog post led to two packages in the mail - how about that?  I'll show them off in reverse order since Justin is new to me, so the best of his stuff comes first:

Justin's cards were all of the older variety (like mid 80's to mid 90's) but there were definitely some gems in there.  My personal faves of the above include first year cards of Carl Pickens, Leroy Hoard, and Eric Zeier.  Pickens was somewhat of a Bengal legend despite some animosity with the city, Hoard was just a beast of a RB, and Zeier was a neat backup QB who I almost always picked in NFL Quarterback Club '98 for the N64 (probably because of his Z last name).  I also really dig the Eric Metcalf MVP card and I never realized Mark Bavaro was a Brown so that was a neat card to see.

The best card of the package may be the Dan Klecko card though, because he's a Pats classic who won two rings with the team (and then a third with the Colts).  His career was really weird, because he started at a defensive lineman but then ended up playing a ton of fullback, and you really don't see a lot of two way players who played both sides as frequently as Klecko did, especially back in the mid 00's.  Klecko's six year career resulted in five sacks, two rushes for five yards, and ten receptions for fifty six yards and one touchdown (he also caught a touchdown in the playoffs for the Colts), which isn't much, but was certainly memorable, at least for me.

Now we get to the Jaybarkerfan segment of the post, and man is it Brownstastic.  There were loads of cards in there but I just picked two trays of my favorites - here's the first:

The top right Dennis Northcutt parallel, bottom right William Green, and of course Jay's card are both serial numbered, and I always love those.  The Damon Gibson card in the top middle is a refractor and looks amazing, and I really dig those expansion cards for when a team is just starting as its interesting to see how the card companies tackle it.

My favorite card here though i definitely the Kevin Johnson Black Diamond card in the middle left.  Johnson never lived up to the lofty expectations many had for him in Cleveland, but he did his best as a WR1 on a team devoid of a lot of offensive talent in those early years and I remember him fondly for that.

Speaking of WR1 on crappy teams, tray two brings multiple Mohammed Massaquoi cards, who led the 2009 Browns in receiving yards with 624 yards on 34 receptions (Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson were awful QBs that year, and 2nd on the team in yards was RB Jerome Harrison with 34 receptions for 220 yards).  The next year he led all Browns WR in yards with 483 on 36 receptions, although Ben Watson led the team overall (68 catches for 473 yards) and Peyton Hillis (61) had more receptions.  All those stats point to a terrible Browns offense that had almost zero passing game, but Massaquoi definitely did what he could to muster something for the Browns, and I always thought that was pretty cool.

All that blabbing about Massquoi ignores some of the other awesome cards in the above scan, including a sweet Bernie Kosar relic and a throwback card of Fullback Marion Motley.  I had never really heard of Motley, but I guess he was pretty impressive in his career that spanned 1946-1955, setting a record for yards per carry by a fullback (5.7) that still stands today.  Many consider him one of the best RBs to ever play the game, and even some of his own teammates and coaches concede he may have finished with better stats than Jim Brown if the team's/league's offensive style had been more similar to that of Brown's career, which is very high praise.  Motley is the the NFL Hall of Fame for his achievements, and that's kind of doubly cool because he grew up in Canton, Ohio, where the HOF is located.  

So some good cards, some good history, and a few Bengals to maybe trade with my LCS - I'd call these two very successful packages!  Thanks for the stuff guys - Justin your return package goes in the mail today, and Jaybarkerfan I have something in the works for you...we'll see what comes of it!