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2026 Bowman Football Deep Dive Analysis Well, this should be fun. Bowman Football hasn’t even officially released yet, and apparently everyone is already annoyed by it. College football fans hate that the price of poker just went up considerably. NFL fans hate that their product is being watered down with heaps of College Uni cards they have no use for. And yet, deservedly or not, Bowman Football is going to be a massive release. Topps was kind enough to grant us odds a full day before launch, albeit with some glaring issues. So I did what we do around here- organize the chaos so hopefully we can make some decisions. This breakdown won't be 100% complete yet. But I think I have enough data compiled to help out a bit. Welcome to 2026 Bowman Football. Part 1: The Basics Drop day is tomorrow, Sept 30th at 12 ET/11 CT. Box costs should be as follows: Hobby- $310 Jumbo- $520 Mega- $65 Value- $30 The FDI fiasco already occurred and ended at $700/box before selling out. And of course, there is a Breaker's Delight SKU, which will only be available on the secondary market for us commoners. I've seen pricing of $1000 & $1500 so far, but for our purposes I'll be using $1k/box for metrics. Part 2: Production Numbers Total cards in the product: ~113,917,000 For Context: 2026 Bowman Baseball- ~128,365,000 cards 2025/26 Bowman Basketball- ~111,821,000 cards Total production by format: Hobby- 110,565 boxes (9,214 cases) FDI- 3,160 boxes (263 cases) Breaker's Delight- 26,000 boxes (4,333 cases) Jumbo- 58,667 boxes (7,333 cases) Mega- 382,500 boxes (19,125 cases) Value- 1,041,667 boxes (26,042 cases) Part 3: Heat Map Expected Hit Rates Per Box: Hobby- 2 Autos (1 NFL, 1 NIL), 7.2 Parallels, 9.9 Inserts, 3.4 Numbered Cards Delight- 3 Autos, 3.15 Parallels, 1 Insert, 1.8 Numbered cards Jumbo- 4 Autos (2 NFL, 2 NIL), 11.9 Parallels, 16.9 Inserts, 5.15 Numbered Cards Mega- 1 Auto per 6.7 boxes (~3 per case), 7 Parallels (possibly 13), 1 Insert, 0.75 Numbered Cards (1 per 1.33 boxes) Value- 1 Auto per 16.4 boxes (~2.4 per case), 1.65 Parallels, 3.9 Inserts, 0.85 Numbered Cards (1 per 1.2 boxes) A couple things to notice: 1) Hobby metrics are very similar to Bowman Basketball, but Jumbo's are slightly worse with ~1.5 fewer parallels and almost a full numbered card less. 2) Megas have taken a step back from Basketball. It now takes 2 more boxes on average to pull an auto. Also, according to the odds, the Mojo parallels have been nerfed and there will now only be 6 Mojo parallels as opposed to 12. However, I'm pretty sure we've seen this story before. Bowman NBA odds were inaccurate and also understated the Mojo parallels. So I'll need to see this to believe it. I'm going with the assumption that there are still 12 Mojos per Mega, plus an additional parallel, even though the math says 7 total. At this point, I don't know if the Megas will contain 1st Autos. 3) For Value boxes, it's TWICE as hard to pull an Auto as we saw in Basketball, 1 per 16.4 boxes as opposed to 1 in 8.6. At the same time, numbered cards are twice as common as they were in Basketball (1 in 1.2 boxes vs 1 in 2.7). In fact, Value boxes will produce more numbered cards than Megas for Football. Percentage of Numbered Autos by Format: 1) Value- 87.7% (But also keep in mind, though predominantly numbered, 66% of Autos in Value Boxes are Paper Autos, the only format you'll find them in. All other Autos are Chrome.) 2) Delight- 72.5% 3) Mega- 71.3% 4) FDI- 67.5% 5) Jumbo- 54.3% 6) Hobby- 53.3% Rare Inserts: Bowman Football has many of the typical Bowman Rare Inserts that we've grown accustomed to: Anime (NFL & NIL) Garbage Pail Kids (NFL & NIL) Spotlights (NFL & NIL) Etched In Glass Variations (NFL & NIL) Crystalized (NFL & NIL) About those Rare Inserts though. I have some good news and some bad news. The good? They are all available in every format. Even better? The most cost effective way to pull them is not from Hobby or Jumbo. In fact, it's a Retail format. Astonishingly Megas offer the most cost effective chance at Rare Inserts. The bad news? Emphasis on the word RARE. Like quite a bit more rare than usual. This is NOTHING like Bowman Baseball Blasters where you were pulling basically one rare insert per case. Cases Per Rare Insert By Format: 1) Hobby/Jumbo- 1.91 2) Mega- 2.86 3) Delight/Value- 3.81 *I'll convert this to cost in the next section. Part 4: Value Map Prices based on drop pricing of $310/Hobby, $520/Jumbo, $65/Mega, $30/Value, and market price of $1,000/Delight. $/Card 1) Value- 50¢ 2) Mega- $1.55 3) Jumbo- $1.81 4) Hobby- $1.94 5) Delight- $100.00 $/Parallel 1) Mega- $9.29 (If 7 parallels/box, $5.00 if 13 parallels/box) 2) Value- $18.40 3) Hobby- $43.30 4) Jumbo- $43.81 5) Delight- $333.33 $/Auto 1) Jumbo- $130.00 2) Hobby- $155.00 3) Delight- $333.33 4) Mega- $436.15 5) Value- $491.70 $/Numbered Card 1) Value- $36.14 2) Mega- $86.67 3) Hobby- $92.26 4) Jumbo- $100.97 5) Delight- $568.18 $/Numbered Auto 1) Jumbo- $239.50 2) Hobby- $290.81 3) Delight- $460.02 4) Value- $560.60 5) Mega- $611.54 $/Rare Insert 1) Mega- $3,716.05 2) Value- $4,573.50 3) Hobby- $7,092.80 4) Jumbo- $7,930.00 5) Delight- $22,890.00 $/Quality Hit 1) Value- $178.02 2) Mega- $257.21 3) Jumbo- $292.76 4) Hobby- $415.09 5) Delight- $462.00 Part 5: Best Formats I can't in good conscience call any format "good". If you're not well versed with ripping Bowman, you will be shocked at how dry and uneventful they will feel...and not just retail rips. First of all, this is not Bowman Chrome. There's definitely some Chrome in there. But these boxes will be predominantly valueless paper cards. Prepare yourself for the posts, because they're coming... "I spent $520 on a jumbo box and pulled $14 worth of cards. I'll never rip another box again." And that's from those folks lucky enough to score boxes at drop pricing. If this is your jam, I'm sorry. I know my words aren't necessarily glowing. If I have to pick some bright spots, I suppose I can. 1) Value Boxes present as the most cost-effective format for all parallels and all inserts. They are only surpassed by Megas for all the Rare Inserts. 2) Of course Jumbo & Hobby are best for Autos. But be careful with that. There are about half a million players on the auto checklists. A massive amount of those won't have much value. Conversely, there are some absolutely nuclear autos, including some amazing Duals & Triples. They're unicorns, but they're in there. 3) $178 per Quality Hit in Value boxes is not terrible. Unfortunately, probably better than half of those will be paper cards of some sort, including autos. At 1 per 1.2 boxes, Values are also pretty stacked with numbered cards. 4) It bears repeating, Megas are the best format for Rare Inserts. I mean, they're basically 1 in 3 cases combined. But it's not often that Megas have a decent seat at the Big Boy table. Part 6: What Would the Squatch Do? Fade the wax and buy singles. Yeah, I know. The ultimate cop out. I can't tell you how many times I've spent 12 hours buried in odds sheets, only for some guru to sum it all up with, "You're dumb. Buy singles." I mean, they're not wrong. But what fun is that? How am I supposed to be a proper degen if I'm just buying my cards for what their worth? But as much as those gurus chap me, I really feel that applies here more than usual. Watch some rips and you'll see...this stuff is O. VER. PRICED. And it's getting ready to spike even harder. Stash at your own risk. It may go back down once people get it. If you rip, be prepared to be bludgeoned. Just being realistic here. If you're into breaks, be careful. With 130+ different teams and 72,000 different auto subjects, you'll be hard pressed to even get an auto, let alone one that covers your entry. That's not to say there are not awesome cards in here. There are a TON of them. But I assure you..many of those brutally tough to pull rare inserts will be available for less than the price of a Jumbo box. Now, if I absolutely had to rip something because, say, my football-obsessed son wouldn't leave me alone about it, I'd stick with Megas or Values. They're the least egregious options of the bunch. You won't have a chance at monsters like the Tom Brady/Bryce Underwood or Anthony Edwards/Matthew Stafford Dual Autos. But at least your dignity will remain intact. Part 7: The Print Runs Total Base Cards (Including Chrome & Paper): ~100,813,624 *I will have to analyze live rip pack dynamics for each format in order to further break this down into Chrome & Paper base print runs. But I wanted to get this out ASAP, so will do that at a later time. The rest of the print runs are going straight to the Substack. There are a bunch and they will require some updating, which X does not allow me to do. So for Print Runs of all the Unnumbered Parallels, Inserts, and Autos, you can check those out here: slabsquatch.substack.com/p/2… #thehobby #SlabSquatchAnalytics #2026BowmanFootball