4 sub-standard weeks, and now an injury. Feels like there’s been a ton of notable injuries across the NFL so far this season.

2026 Topps Flagship Football Leather parallel

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Hot Wheels (2026)

Series: Screen Time 07/10

Collection No: 224/250

Designer: Brendon Vetuskey

Produced: 2025-Present

Mr. Clutch 😮‍💨

I spent the weekend in New Hampshire visiting a buddy.

We hit his local card shop and ripped 2026 Bowman Football Mega's at $80 a box. Zero hits.
Then we walked into a Dick's House of Sport, the giant House of Sport format, and found the exact same Mega for $65. We ripped a bunch there. Hit after hit.

Let me put the numbers on this, because they matter. 2026 Bowman Football is the first Bowman NFL product since 2016, fully licensed NFL and NCAA in one product, and it carries Arch Manning's first Topps card. Topps lists the Mega at $64.99. Fanatics: $64.99. GameStop: $64.99. Dick's: $65. The card shop: $80. That is 23% over sticker on a retail product.

I'm fine with a markup existing. Shops have rent. But here's what the markup is competing against now. Dick's launched ScoreCard+ on July 1st: $99 a year, $100 back guaranteed ($25 a quarter, so it pays for itself), 3x points on one purchase a year, free shipping. GameStop Pro is $25 a year: 5% off all collectibles including wax, a $5 coupon every month, 10% extra trade-in credit. And the sleeper nobody talks about: GameStop now buys and sells PSA-graded singles, grades 8 through 10, with Pros getting 5% off and a 15% trade-in bonus. They're not just undercutting the LCS on boxes anymore. They're coming for singles too.

Meanwhile Fanatics cut its biggest distributor, allocates direct to shops now, pushes broader retail availability, and is opening flagship card stores in London and Paris.

So here's my message to the struggling LCS: think outside the box. I used to work at GameStop. We threw massive midnight launches for Halo, GTA, Resident Evil, Gears of War. Big parties, swag, lines around the building. Now picture this: you're a card shop in Massachusetts, AJ Dybantsa's home state, and you throw a midnight launch for 2026-27 Topps Flagship Basketball, his first licensed card. Everybody who shows up gets entered in a raffle for a signed jersey. That's a reason to leave the house that Dick's can't replicate with a rewards app. And by the way, Dick's is already doing rip nights, trade nights, and launch nights. The big box is coming for the experience layer too.

Card shops truly matter, but what matters is the community you build. If your whole business is moving sealed wax at a markup, you're not a shop. You're a vending machine with rent.

And the honest footnote: cheaper wax doesn't fix the math inside the box. A $65 Mega and an $80 Mega hold the same cards. My hits at Dick's came from probability, not the store. If you're going to rip, buy where it's cheapest. Or better yet, wait three weeks and buy the single.

Shop owners: what's your move? Collectors: how much over sticker will you pay to keep your LCS alive?

With the White Sox’s on a roll thought the Big Hurt card was in order.

This copy of Sports Illustrated landed on newsstands today in 1998, and it’s one of my favorite pieces in my collection.

If you look closely you can see this copy is autographed and authenticated with CGC’s Signature Series, which is an in person, witnessed authentication. But that’s not Mark McGwire’s auto. It’s comic book legend Todd McFarlane.

In 1999 McFarlane infamously paid $3 million for that 70th HR ball, making it the most expensive baseball ever. Many in the hobby wrecked him for overpaying, and ridiculed his purchase. The McFarlane purchase held the record for over 25 years until the Shohei Ohtani 50/50 ball sold for $4.4 million in 2024.

There’s a ton of McGwire autos out there, and even more McFarlane autos. But this is the only graded copy of this issue featuring McFarlane’s auto. A true 1 of 1. At least for now

Grateful to Danny and The Addicted Recovery Show for giving me the space to share my story so openly.

There was a time when so much of what I was going through lived in secrecy, shame, and isolation. Today, I choose to talk about it openly because someone else may be living in that same silence.

If sharing the hardest parts of my story helps even one person recognize themselves sooner, feel less alone, or believe that recovery is possible, then that vulnerability is worth it.

To me, that’s the spirit of Step 12: paying forward what was given to me. Turning pain into purpose, and using lived experience to help someone else find a way forward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYyZVDArKLY&t=388s