It's Wonderful

 

Football season kicks off today, so it seemed appropriate to pull out another oddball set to celebrate. The 1976 Wonderbread football set was included with loafs of bread (I don't recall if these were included with any other baked goods).  If anyone remembers seeing these cards in a loaf of Wonderbread, well then congratulations, you are officially old.  

Usually I find these cards creased and beat up in some dealers dime box as I've been looking to complete this set for some time.  Last weekend a nice set finally fell in my lap.  At $12, I feel like I may have overpaid for this seemingly unwanted set by collectors, but I'm happy to have it.

There are 24 cards in the set but only one punter.  He may have been a well known punter, but I'm still trying to reconcile the fact he is in the Hall of Fame.  

Craig Morton is a questionable choice to represent quarterbacks in this set. 

George Kunz was the 2nd overall selection by the Falcons in the 1969 draft.  He didn't make the Hall of Fame, but the trade that brought him to the Colts landed Atlanta Steve Bartkowski.  This is also the only card in the set that is not a headshot.

At least the running backs are well represented here with Franco Harris.

Look no stats!  The back side of the card has a favorite play of Hank Stram.  No wonder KC didn't win another Super Bowl with Hank, Wonderbread gave away all of his secrets!

In case no one noticed these cards are color coded.  Blue = offense and red = defense.  Until I had the set laid out in front of me, I had never noticed that before.  The set is also laid out by position, so you basically have an offense lined up against the defense, with two special teams players (punter and place kicker).  Here's the matchup:

I'm not sure this would have been my all-pro lineup, but still pretty good for the era. 

I can just imagine set collectors searching through each loaf of bread on the grocery store shelf, searching for that one player they needed.  Unfortunately for me, this set was released before I even started collecting, or I may have been the one kid searching through loaves of bread.  And believe me, I would have gladly stood around each rack of bread trying to find my favorite player. 

I'm glad to finally own this oddball food issued set and will keep it near my other food sets.  If I can find the extra cards from this set, they'll end up as trade bait or in the purge box.  

Until next enjoy another Backseat Break!