SET REVIEW – 2024 Optic Football

3,940 words, 21 minutes read time.

Set review #2 is here, and personally, I can’t wait to get this online. Optic is my personal favorite and when they nail the design, it really sticks. The big comparison for Optic is always twofold – one, is it different enough from the design of the Donruss set to ‘feel’ premium by comparison? And two, does that feeling you get when you hold one of these cards in your hand, compete properly with Prizm, the other flagship Panini NFL Football set? Let’s try to answer those big questions with the latest football card release – Optic 2024! 🐵

Overview & Intro

As we said in our 2024 Prizm Football SET REVIEW, both Optic and Prizm in the world of football cards are in a 1a/1b scenario when you ask questions like, “Which is the best football card set?” Or, “where should I start collecting football cards that hold their value?”

Great questions and we’re going to tackle them head on. Let’s dive in.

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Checklist

Download the full 2024 Donruss Optic Football checklist here!

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Product Formats & What to Buy?

2024 Donruss Optic Football is a 300 card base set. Unlike Prizm where you can pull retired players and coach cards, a quick scan of the checklist shows the full base set are all active players. First 200 cards are veterans and second year players – rookies are numbered #201-300.

2024 Optic is available in the following formats; here’s the breakdown on a per product basis, some commentary to follow after. Prices listed are in USD and are roughly what the products cost when first released – over time, as product sells out, pricing only ever goes up from where it starts.

This year, with Optic especially, almost no retail product can easily be found and almost everything is being re-sold at a premium in the secondary market. If you can find these products at MSRP, it’s almost certainly the best price you’ll ever see on them.

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Pretty manageable for a big release, there’s only a couple of choices here regarding product format and what to buy. On the Hobby / high end side, the question is whether to go with the full calorie Hobby product, or whether to consider the H2 option at a much lower price point.

With retail, the question is essentially the old blaster vs. mega vs. fat pack and which one gives you the best bang for your buck.

As more product is released, we’ll have a much better idea, but for the moment and as of writing, we’d say this – unlike many prior years, the H2 with it’s guaranteed ultra low numbered to five red and blue mojo (#/5) parallels is looking tasty.

The big knock against H2 product in past is that it costs a premium and there’s fewer autos. Which there are, no question. But Panini, as they lose their grasp on NFL licensing and player exclusive autographs, are still the go-to for the best football cards on the market – meaning low numbered parallels are going to be the ‘best’ cards out there for the top rookies.

Remember, JD5, Drake Maye, Bo Nix – they all signed with Fanatics, which means their autos are in Topps product. Which is weird, for sure, because you’re then forced to choose – stick with the go-to, licensed brands and product lines that go back 10+ years like Prizm and Optic, or chase an auto in the unlicensed product where you get Jayden Daniel’s John Hancock but they can’t write the word ‘Commanders’ on the card. Yes, it’s goofy.

It means that, depending on hit rates, the H2 boxes with their exclusive #/5s might very well end up being the best bet.

The other, MAJOR concern, is what we’re seeing pulled out of these Hobby boxes. Packman just ripped open two standard Hobby boxes and the results were atrocious. The quality control is absolute garbage. Almost every Rated Rookie to come out of Hobby was cut WAY off center, and the ONE auto plus the handful of numbered parallels had a terrible distribution.

I mean, look at these cuts:

The numbered parallels that came out of the two hobby boxes were as follows:

• #/325 RC auto (Ray Davis)
• #/299 veteran
• #/299 veteran
• #/249 veteran
• #/199 veteran
• #/149 RC
• #/125 veteran
• #/75 veteran
• #/60 veteran
• #/25 RC (Daijun Edwards)

9 numbered, plus the auto. Gruesome, considering every other rookie or insert in the box was cut badly like this. Second box wasn’t much better:

• #/325 RC auto (Jermaine Burton, see below)
• #/299 RC
• #/249 RC
• #/249 veteran
• #/199 RC
• #/199 veteran
• #/149 veteran
• #/125 RC
• #/80 veteran
• #/50 veteran (Jonathan Allen)

And look at where this card is signed! Nowhere near the white space allotted in the card design:

I swear, if I spent $900 USD on a box of cards and every one of my rookies / inserts and autos came out all mangled and screwed up like this, I’d be beyond furious. To add insult to injury, good luck getting a hold of Panini to complain, they’re notorious for ghosting / failing to reply to complaints. If you want to see this mess opened live, here’s the link to the video.

Bottom line, FOTL is on the way, along with H2 – let’s see a few of these opened live to ensure they aren’t dealing with the same quality control as the standard Hobby boxes. If they’re all mangled in this way, I think our recommendation here at MONKEY MAN Sports is going to be to just roll with regular old blaster boxes this year, and to hell with the rest. The Penix Jr shown below, we pulled ourselves and is a good example of what ALL the Rated Rookies looked like that came out of retail thus far.

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On the retail side, it’s largely going to come down to which parallel color matches your big rookies and chase cards that you’re hunting. Blasters from Wal-Mart have an exclusive Purple Shock design that’s… busy, and a little jarring. Dark purple looks good with the Vikings (hello there JJ McCarthy!), and maybe the Rams. For a Miami player though? The LA Chargers? A lot going on there. What is nice is that even with the blasters, every pack has a Rated Rookie, and the base card designs are minty fresh. Clean, white Optichrome borders tickle my OCD in a way that ultra busy designs just don’t.

Target has the Pink holo exclusive from their blaster. While I think I prefer it to the noisy Purple Shock of Walmart, historically I think people tend to gravitate away from Pink as a parallel. If I had to guess, I’d say the demographic for football cards skews so hard towards male that Pink is never going to be a major chase parallel. That’s a shot in the dark on my part though, so take it as a wild guess and nothing more.

Value Packs are brutal this year. No chance of autos or numbered parallels like the Blasters / Megas offer, the SP chase is a candy cane red/white looking thing, and the exclusive parallel is mid-looking at best. Stay away from the Value packs – they are the worst retail value this year.

On the flip side, the standard retail packs / counter packs box is great value for a retail product. Couple of holos, 12+ Rated Rookies, the Stars parallels are very nice this year, and you can hit Downtowns. All for $100? Awesome value here.

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Base Card Design & Centering Guide

The base card for 2024 Optic Football has clean and obvious bordering – the margins along the top / left and right of the cards here is where you should be looking to establish if the card is well centered.

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Cards that don’t require a map, compass and protractor to eyeball the centering properly are nice to see and rather kind to the collector who appreciates a well-centered card. Sometimes I feel that certain designs these days are done specifically to hide the sketchy quality control we sometimes see out of the Panini products. Optic can be sometimes unforgiving in this regard because of it’s typically clean design and obvious bordering / margins – you can usually see immediately if the card is out of whack.

Take a look here at the front and back of a base set Rated Rookie card:

Use the green highlights as your gauge. On the front, for 2024 Optic Football centering, it’s very straightforward – like Donruss, you’re looking for consistency along the top of the card. The margins left and right of the frame should match the margin at the top – if all three are consistent, that same width should match the margin below the nameplate.

The back is easy to gauge too, but you have to ignore the bottom half of the card. Short answer, just look at the top / left / right margins around the frame, just like the front of the card. Long answer is, if you can see it, two separate frames make up the design of the card back. One, and the most important one for grading, is the top / left / right margins we’ve been talking about. The other one is a framing set around the text along the bottom. It’s harder to see, I’ll add an extra green highlight to box this second frame. This level of analysis is overkill, mind you. If the front and the back frames up nicely and consistently along the top edge of the card, you’ll get full marks for centering on Optic 2024 rookie cards.

Parallels (Holos)

Lots to look at here, but many are just product-exclusive variants. More on this after the breakdown.

We’ll start with the non-numbered parallels, where to find them and what they look like.

These are listed alphabetically, and while these don’t have serial numbers, some are still extremely rare.

Prizm Name	Found In	Rarity	Example
Blue Glitter	Blaster	SP
Blue Hyper	Mega – Walmart
Blue Scope	Blaster – Hobby
Fire (emoji)	Blaster – Retail	SP
Freedom	Value Pack	SP
Green Hyper	Mega – Target
Green Velocity	Value Pack
Holo	Everything
Jazz	Hobby
One Hundred	Retail Pack	SP
Pink	Blaster – Target
Purple Scope
Purple Shock	Blaster – Walmart
Red Hyper
Red Mojo
Red Stars
Rocket (emoji)	Mega	SP
Stars	Retail Pack
Teal Velocity	Mega	SP
White Sparkle

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Each retail product has an exclusive parallel that’s guaranteed a small quantity in each box, and each product format also has a SP (short print) parallel to chase as well. Here’s a more concise chart for the retail stuff:

• Mega = Hyper Green (Target), Hyper Blue (Walmart) and Rocket (emoji) or Teal Velocity holo as the SP chase.
• Blaster = Pink holo for Target, Purple Shock for Walmart, and Fire (emoji) or Blue Glitter as the SP chase.
• Value Pack = Green Velocity is the exclusive, and a Red/White candy cane (Freedom) as the SP chase.
• Retail Packs = Stars are the exclusive, and One Hundred (emoji) is the SP chase.

On to the numbered parallels! We’ll sort these by rarity.

Prizm Name	Found In	Rarity	Example
Rated Rookie Autographs	Hobby, Blaster, Mega	#/325
RPS Rookie Patch Autos	Hobby, Blaster, Mega	#/325
Wave	Premium Box Set	#/300
Aqua (holo)	Hobby	#/299
Orange (holo)	Hobby	#/249
Blue (holo)	Hobby	#/199
Flex (emoji)	Hobby	#/149
Red (holo)	Hobby	#/125
Pink Velocity	Hobby	#/80
Orange Scope	Mega	#/79
Electricity (?)	Hobby	#/75
Purple (holo)	Hobby	#/60
Lime Green (holo)	Hobby	#/50
Team Logo	Hobby	#/32
Black Pandora	Hobby, Blaster, Mega	#/25
Dragon		#/24
Footballs (emoji)	Hobby	#/16
Ice	Hobby, Blaster, Mega	#/15
Purple Stars	1st Off The Line (FOTL)	#/15
Gold (holo)	Hobby	#/10
Blue Mojo		#/5
Green (holo)	Hobby	#/5
Black (holo)	Hobby	#/1
Gold Vinyl	Hobby, Blaster, Mega	#/1
Nebula	Premium Box Set	#/1

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Hitting a low #’d card in Optic 2024 is going to be TOUGH, given the distribution here. The second question becomes one of quality control. Given what we saw in the Hobby box video above, and how atrocious the card cutting was, how sickening would it be to pull one of the very difficult to hit #/32 and below cards, of the right guy, and then have it show up looking like it was cut by the Joker?

Base Inserts

The common retail insert sets are as follows:

• 2014 RETRO SERIES – big name rookies and some odd vet choices
• BEST TUDDYS – QBs with their main receiver (and Kelce) connection
• CAPTAIN IN CHARGE – 10 card set; 7 vet QBs plus CJ Mosley, Fred Warner and Amon-Ra St Brown…?
• CHAIN REACTION – 10 card set again; again a very strange mix of players. Mahomes, Stroud and Jordan Love? Derrick Henry, Saquon and… Javonte Williams? Davante, JJ and then Jaylen Waddle?
• DIAMOND HANDS – all the big name rookie receivers plus a few big WR vets (and Kelce again)
• HIDDEN POTENTIAL – all rookies, but specifically the second-tier rookies that didn’t have as much hype coming into the season, which means no JD5 and Nix, but Joe Milton and the Rat are in here. Bucky is in here, along with Cooper DeJean. Nice way to get some inserts of the guys that deserve some love for the rookie season they had
• LIGHT IT UP – everyday accessible Color Blast inserts; black background with big chrome writing. Undeniably nice looking cards, and you can pull #/25 all the way down to #/1 of these
• MY HOUSE! – 10 cards; all five top QB rookies and five quality vets, this is a staple insert to Optic
• PASSING GRADE – new to 2024, it’s a simple QB set with a fake checklist where every QB gets 100% on everything. Big opportunity missed to put actual ratings on these cards and start community arguments 🐵
• PLAY ACTION – half offensive rookies, half vets, 20 cards
• ROOKIE PRIMARY COLORS – top rookies, 20 card set, nothing fancy
• ROOKIE RECRUITS – military themed, green camo with some chrome accents

The napkin / memorabilia inserts are nothing to blow your hair back, but you’ll see these in Megas and the odd blaster box and likely trick yourself into thinking you hit big.

• DONRUSS THREADS – 16 cards, all vets but a couple of nice defensive players in here like Will Anderson Jr and Alex Highsmith
• FIRST YEAR FRESH – 42 cards, all rookies. Just wild looking citrus colors designed to visually clash with the uniform colors of every single team in the NFL. Designed by the blind, for the blind. Awful stuff.
• ROOKIE PHENOMS – 42 cards, all rookies. This is the better of the two rookie mem sets. See below.

Case Hits / SP / SSPs

Downtowns. OPTIC Downtowns. And for the first time ever, Downtown Duos! AND for the first time ever, a little brother to the Downtowns – you can now pull Uptowns! Similar idea and design, same sort of energy to the cards. If you’re familiar with Absolute’s KABOOM! hits, you probably know of the EXPLOSIVE! little brother case hit as well. Same idea here, an alternative case hit that’s got the same sort of mojo, but doesn’t overshadow the classic chase card.

What is really cool is that even the retail product like Megas and Blasters can pull numbered Uptowns, making the hunt for case hits in Optic Football 2024 the spiciest chase of the year.

• DOWNTOWN / DOWNTOWN DUOS – Big brother and the always present reason to rip a pack of Optic. Can be found in retail packs, fat packs, blasters, megas, hobby – every Optic 2024 product has the chance to pull one of the big chase cards. Duos are new this year, two players per card. Hobby has the #/’d versions and the super high value chase cards including the 1/1s.
• UPTOWNS – New for 2024, the little brother to the Downtown. Nice card in keeping with the style and energy of the Downtown. If you like the DTs, you’ll like the UTs – you’ll just never value them as highly because of the history of the DTs.
• SUNDAY KINGS / ROOKIE KINGS – Case hits, but not the ones you’re looking for. Nice cards, but in a set like Donruss/Optic or Absolute, it’s a DT or KABOOM!, or bust. The Downtowns and KABOOM! cards are just so universally valued and recognized within the community that every other case hit in these sets will pale in comparison.
• HASH MARKS – 43 cards, it’s a SSP case hit auto set. The Marks in the Hash Marks set are the players’ autographs. If the big QBs had signed with Panini, then ok, I see the value here… but since that’s not the case, I can’t see anyone feeling good ‘spending’ their case hit luck on a Cade Stover Hash Marks instead of a Downtown. 😵‍💫🙃

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Chase Cards in 2024 Donruss Optic Football

Rookie class this year looks STRONG. It’s always possible that all five(!) of the starting rookie QB1s all magically break their legs or get sent to jail in the offseason, but it’s unlikely. The receiver class of rookies are almost all WR1s on their teams in their first years as well. Brock Bowers already looks like the best tight end in the league and I predict he’ll be a fantasy football superstar in 2025 since Geno Smith (freshly traded to the Raiders) will need to check down often learning the new team and offense.

CLICK HERE to check our post on the Top Rookies in the 2024 NFL Draft class, and see some of their best cards available in Optic and other highly sought after sets.

Any and all of these cads are doing to be worth adding to your collection as they have huge upside and Optic is arguably the other flagship set for football cards (Prizm being the 1a to Optic’s 1b). I collect Najee Harris, because I am a fool (and I just watched the Steelers walk the guy in free agency, ffs 😤), but I absolutely do own an Optic holo rookie. You gotta have the Optic holo rookie of your guy.

Just keep in mind, if your guy is now Jayden Daniels, get ready to shell out some serious cash, I think his base Optic rookies are going for about $30 as of writing. Like, his base RC. Strong values here.

On the hobby side, you’re looking for those low numbered parallels, the Gold Vinyl 1/1s, and perhaps most importantly, the Downtown / Downtown Duos / Uptowns case hits. Just like Donruss, it’s all about those Downtowns – they remain, year after year, the biggest rival to Absolute’s KABOOM! case hit for the most popular football cards available.

Final Thoughts

Awesome set, but you have to know what you’re getting into and manage your expectations. Consider the following ideas when comparing Optic to other sets in this price point:

• For the same $35-50 you’ll spend on a Optic blaster, you could get a Prizm Football blaster or a Topps Chrome Football blaster. You can pull the always valued Prizm Silvers out of the Prizm blasters, but that’s about it. You can pull autos of Jayden Daniels and Caleb Williams out of the Topps Chrome. Going with Optic, you trade the huge ceiling the Topps Chrome autos offer for a chance to hit Downtowns and 1/1s in Optic that a Prizm blaster simply doesn’t make available.
• If you’re going to go hog wild and spend on this set, at the moment it’s hard to recommend Hobby boxes, given what we’re seeing out of the first rips. We may come back and update this later if the quality control allows for an update and we determine the first rips were just a fluke bad couple of boxes.
• Last year, the FOTL boxes had *all* the numbered Downtowns, which Panini claimed was a fluke. Let’s hope so. We don’t know yet what the FOTL boxes hold in store for us at the time of writing.
• If you’re starting off buying singles – start with a nice copy of the Optic Holo for your main guys. You can’t go wrong, it’s a timeless and classic look that, if you’re like me, you’ll enjoy seeing it on your desk for years to come. 90% of PSA 9s are visually indistinguishable from 10s – if it’s for your own PC, you get a big price break going for the 9s and you’ll enjoy it just the same.

Lastly, and we’ll always remind you of this and make this recommendation on any and all set reviews we do, don’t forget to have fun. Enjoy the thrill of the chase, share it with your kids, and build your collection in any way that makes you happy. Thanks for reading our set review for 2024 Donruss Optic Football cards, and we hope this is the kind of resource that can support collectors new and old in enjoying our hobby to the max.

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