2022 Optic Football Review And Checklist: How To Invest In Optic? [Checklist Added]

Jesse Haynes May 23, 2023

2022 optic football

Optic has been a collector favorite since its release in 2016 as a football and basketball product. It’s widely considered in the top-tier of mass-market sports card royalty along with Prizm and Select.

These three products all feature chromium cards and Prizm-based inserts and parallels, giving layers of scarcity and different eye appeals for collectors to pursue enthusiastically.

Optic Football 2022 is set to release on May 31st, 2023, and here’s everything you need to know about the upcoming release. 

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2022 Optic Football product introduction 

Although a top tier release, Optic football is distinguishable for its Rated Rookie cards, which are some of the most iconic rookie cards every year. Much like Silver Prizm rookies, Optic has a Silver parallel as well (which is called the “holo,” to add an extra layer of confusion.).

The Optic holos are rare, valuable, and amazing looking and always have a lower population than Silver Prizms on the PSA pop reports. 

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What to expect from 2022 Optic football

Optic 2022 has a few new additions that will give it more variety in 2022, but it’s also very similar to the brand we ranked as our second-best long-term investment in sports cards. 

As always, this is a product for collectors who enjoy ripping packs – and those products are becoming progressively more difficult to find.

This year’s hobby product has a familiar composition that is in line with the previous iterations of Optic: a box consisting of 20 packs with 4 cards per pack. Each box averages 1 autograph, 20 rated rookies, 10 parallels (with 8 that are numbered), and 4 inserts.

The boxes can be preordered for $575—down from $900 last year— but don’t be surprised to see that price move in either direction before release day. 

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2022 Optic checklist information 

What’s new with Optic in 2022?

In short, very little. If you opened Optic 2021 football, you’ll have a good feel for everything you need to know, except for a few less attractive rookies in 2022.

Speaking of rookies, one awesome draw of the product is that many of the autographs are on-card and the Rated Rookie autographs include Sauce Garner, Kenny Pickett, Garrett Wilson and other stars from the 2022 Class.

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As usual, the popular product is adding new parallel color, too. This year it’s Electricity (/65) and Jazz parallels.

There are also a few new inserts: Gifted Rookies, Rising Sons, Global, and Legendary Logos. While these add a bit of fun variety, they’ll be nothing to write home about in terms of value. The Gifted Rookies, unfortunately, look very cheesy.

Besides low-numbered parallels, the other big-pull potential lies with the Downtown cards. They’re already SSPs, but this year they will have parallels down to Gold Vinyl 1/1!

Love parallels? Here’s a look at the Optic rainbow for 2022 football.

• Holo
• Jazz
• Rocket
• Aqua – #/299
• Orange – #/199
• Blue – #/179
• Silver Circles – #/125
• Red – #/99
• Pink Velocity – #/79
• Electricity – #/65
• Purple – #/50
• Lime Green – #/35
• Black Pandora – #/25
• Ice – #/15
• Gold – #/10
• Green – #/5
• Gold Vinyl – 1/1

Collectors should also keep their eyes peeled for Rookie Patch Autographs, which are all numbered to 25 or less. There are also “Legendary” versions that feature veteran patch autographs, also to 25.

In short, 2022 Optic is the same ol’ formula that collectors love with new rookies and just enough tweaking to keep it feeling fresh and interesting. 

Investing in Optic Football 

With a pre-order price of $575, buying a box of Optic is not an impulse buy. But don’t worry – we’ve done the work for you. 

The nice thing about Optic and the rest of the opti-chrome brands is that you at least get quite a few cards.

I’m personally scared of a $600 box that only has 8 or so cards because that’s truly a roll of the dice. With a product like Optic that has 80 cards, at least you’re going to get something, you know? 

Still, it’s a major investment and something you need to think long and hard about before pulling the trigger. Here are a few different ways to think about investing in Optic. 

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Investing in sealed boxes

If you’re investing in sealed boxes with the intent of holding them, here are some numbers to consider.

• Current resell of 2021 hobby: $730
• Current resell of 2020 hobby: $1,450
• Current resell of 2019 hobby: $305
• Current resell of 2018 hobby: $950
• Current resell of 2017 hobby: $2,225

What can we learn from this?

Most importantly, you should note that the 2022 draft class will most likely be a lot closer to the 2019 (Kyler Murray and Daniel Jones) than the stronger classes on this list.  With that in mind, $575 feels very steep if you’re buying this to hold.

The bottom line is that the rookie class always matters. Yeah, this might sound like a no-brainer, but when you’re investing in a sealed product to hold, it has to be said. 

If you are buying a sealed box to sit on, Optic isn’t a bad option – especially if you like the 2022 rookie class.  But the stars of the class are either defensive players or receivers, largely, and neither of those positions has ever proven lucrative for investing. 

And this hasn’t been verified by Panini, but there are definitely more boxes being printed in 2022 than there were in 2017 and 2018. This alone will help cap the potential if you are buying this product sealed with the hope to flip in 5 – 10 years.

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Investing in Optic Football rookies

Optic rookie cards are one of the blue-chip investments of modern Panini rookies – perhaps second to only Prizm. If you’re going to invest in just one card of anybody, Optic is a great way to go.

Your best bet of making a profit on this product is finding a few holos of players you believe in, buying them raw (after asking the seller for more pictures), then getting them graded. 

If you can scoop up silvers of the rookies you like and grade, then you’ll be set for a long-term hold. Collectors go nuts for Optic PSA 10 parallels, especially if you can get cards in one of the two rarest tiers.

But caution: as with all new releases don’t buy the first Optic cards that appear on eBay for this year. The price will inevitably drop as the supply meets the demand.

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Bottomline on Donruss Optic 2022: Rip, hold or pass?

Optic is my personal favorite brand (particularly basketball), and it keeps getting even better year after year while still capturing the magic of what makes the product special.

The only drawback on this year’s product is a weaker rookie class than previous years, but at about 60% of last year’s release price, that dip in rookies seemed to be factored into the price tag. 

What do you think of this product? What will it be worth in 5 years? Let us know on Twitter @card_lines. 

2022 Donruss Optic Football checklist