Category Archives: NFL

NFL, XFL

Smith, Ed (TE)

CARD: Topps XFL 2001
ACQUIRED: TTM 2023, C/o Work
SENT: 4/3 RECEIVED: 5/5 (32 days)
FAILURE: TTM 2022, C/o Work

CAREER SNAPSHOT:

  • Ed Smith took a unique path to football, declining scholarships to Penn State and Florida to play TE, and instead went into the minor league baseball system with the Chicago White Sox.
  • After 9 seasons in the minor league farm system, Ed elected to play football in the World League in 1996.
  • He played TE for the Frankfurt Galaxy.
  • Afterwards he joined the Washington Redskins where eventually he was elevated off the practice squad to the 52 man roster.
  • Played for the Falcons from 1997-’98.
  • After a camp with the Browns, Ed split the 1999 season with the Eagles and Lions.
  • Out of football for a year he decided to play one more final season for the Birmingham Thunderbolts of the XFL in 2001.
  • Ed is now a radio personality in the Phoenix area, and is also a motivational/ inspirational speaker.

NOTES:

What a class act! Ed was kind enough to not only sign my card, he also sent me a copy of his autobiography as well with a nice note. Ed’s brother is former NFL TE Irv Smith.

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122.002
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Arena, CFL, NFL

Marinovich, Todd ‘Robo QB’ (2)

CARDS: Classic ’91, Upper Deck College Legends 2011
ACQUIRED: TTM 2023, C/o Home
SENT: 5/8/23 RECEIVED: 8/19/24 (469 days)

CAREER SNAPSHOT:

NOTES:

While the address I sent to was a PO Box in California, the cards came back postmarked from Hawaii. I think a first for me after all these years. Todd was right there at the cusp of it all with the cards in 1991. Wasn’t really a big fan of this design of Classic. In fact I laughed at it because of the camo, but strangely its grown on me over the years. Both of these cards have superior photography to support the design.

AAF, NFL

Richardson, Trent

CARDS: Topps AAF 2019 Certified, Panini Playbook 2011 Doak
ACQUIRED: EBay 2019
FAILURE: TTM 2019, C/o The Birmingham Iron
Paid Signing, 2024

NOTES:

Going off topic on this one today.

Trent was considered the crown jewel of the Alliance of American Football. League executives had already tossed around the idea that once the league took off and found its foothold that there’d be a place at the table for Trent once he retired to become a brand ambassador of sorts.

Initially his certified autograph was hard to come by, but eventually I was able to get a reasonably priced version of the autograph. His Panini Playbook card was another matter.

At the beginning of COVID, way, way back in 2020 initially there was panic about a nationwide shutdown. Nobody was on EBay, and I was able to snag quite a few really nice autographs of players that were just hanging out there, including this fun little Panini Playbook of Trent.

How patient am I? Way, way back in March of 2024, I committed to a paid signing quickly after I had missed out on the only other previous one I’d seen for Trent. I piled in all my set needs and rareties knowing this was the best way to get him, because he’s a zero signer TTM. Then I waited. The deadline for the signing got moved- then passed. I started to worry.

I contacted the promoter, (who I choose not to identify) and he patiently kept me up to date as to what was going on. Delay after delay. It got to a point where Richardson was saying, “I’ll get it out to you this weekend dawg.” Eventually days turned into weeks, into months… and finally, in December of 2024, the promoter, sensing his good name was being besmirched by Trent’s lack of follow through, hit Richardson with a legal letter.

This jostled Richardson into admitting there were some things going on around his house that was making it difficult for him to get back to get these things signed and into the mail, as he had promised. I quickly quipped to the promoter that I’d be surprised if Trent got the autographs back to him before March 2025.

Then in April of ’25, the promoter offered a full refund on Richardson. He still held out hope that Trent would return the items. In the meantime, all my precious rare Topps AAF Now cards are nowhere to be seen.

See Also: The Autograph Encyclopedia’s Hall of Disappointment