My last visit to “Middle Georgia Sports Cards” store in Warner Robins turned up a few early 90’s gems, in addition to my purchase of a box of 2016 Donruss Football. I’ll rip that one a little later and post on it. It was a pretty solid football product in 2016 and is not too easy to find these days so I had to grab it. Along with the box of ’92 Fleer Ultra Baseball I purchased and previously reviewed, I also picked up a box of ’91 Fleer Ultra Football off of the $5 table. 
A few things caught my eye with this one. First, the pink neon post it note called out to me like a siren in the night. A full box of any year and set for $5 requires a closer look. It doesn’t always require a purchase, but certainly a closer look. When I saw the year and sport, this one required a purchase. An NES cult classic was also released in 1991. That NES classic was Tecmo Super Bowl, or Super Tecmo Bowl if you prefer. Along with card collecting, this game is one of the few things that can still make me feel like I’m 14 years old. I know all of the players who played in the NFL that year. I know most of their stats and I certainly know almost all of their attributes on Tecmo. So the decision to purchase was an immediate yes.
I’ll get this out of the way up front. If you are as big of a Tecmo fan as I am and you spent your teens playing season after season, go find this box on EBay and buy it, so long as it’s reasonable. Again, I got it at $5. If you can find it for $10 or less, don’t hesitate. You aren’t going to get rich but I promise you that the names will trigger quite a few memories for you. The only name that is surprisingly missing from the set is Bo Jackson. He did injure his hip in the playoffs of the 1990-91 season so he was not active in 1991 but he was a pro bowler in 1990 and it would have been nice had he been included. Aside from his absence, all of the other stars from the NFL and the game are included. There are also many stars on the game that weren’t actually considered stars in the collecting hobby in 1991. They are there too.
The set itself is the first year for Fleer Ultra in Football. It consisted of a 300 card base set (280 veterans and 20 rookies) and a 10 card All-Star set. There isn’t much by way of inserts to get excited about. The All-Stars are not particularly sharp as they use a bland gold color border to mark the set. The base set design is a complete copy of the baseball set from ’91, from the silver top and bottom border to the thin card stock. While the card stock differed from what Topps had thrown at collectors for years, it was much like the 1990 Pro Set card that hasn’t been able to stand the test of time. I believe Score is the first card company to get the card stock right in Football in 1989 but that year was about all they got right. Of course, Upper Deck later joined the fray and outclassed the field, much like they did in baseball early on. There was also some fading in various aspects of the Ultra card. This would be due to the lack of UV coating that would come later in Fleer Ultra’s efforts. Although, no UV coating means that the cards aren’t sticking together in the packs 26 years later.
A box contains 36 packs with 14 cards in each. I’m not too sure about the collation throughout each box but I did put the entire set together with one box break. The cards showcase good action shots of the players on the front and three photos on the back, a profile shot and two more action shots. Photography on NFL Trading Cards has always been on par or better than baseball to me. Maybe it’s because of the existence of NFL films or the proximity of the photographers to the field versus other sports but I’ve always enjoyed the photography on football cards. The photography was so good, it really put Ironhead Heyward’s size in perspective when you compared him to a defensive tackle! Overall, Ultra did a reasonable job on the product and provided the collector with an alternative to Pro Set, Topps and Score. They could have differentiated the product from baseball in some way but they seem to have used the exact same templates and it was a little boring by the time football season rolled around.
The checklist is very strong. The set includes almost all of the star QB’s of my generation, with two exceptions – Jim Kelly and Bernie Kosar. Kelly and Kosar both only had Pro Set card’s in 1991, which may have been some sort of deal they had with the NFLPA or QB Club or something. I remember there being an issue with the licensing when Tecmo came out and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the two missing from this set are known as QB Bills and QB Browns on Tecmo that season as well. The third “QB” from the game is included in the set, Randall Cunningham. Along with Cunningham, you also have access to Montana, Aikman, Elway, Marino, Moon, Simms, Esiason and a back-up named Steve Young. There are plenty of other names that will be recognized but aren’t considered “Stars” per se, such as Steve DeBerg, Mark Rypien and Jim “Don’t Call Me Chris” Everett. 
The RB class is also well represented, with the exception of Bo. The set includes Barry Sanders, Thurman Thomas, Herschel Walker, Icky Woods, Marcus Allen, Neal Anderson, Emmitt Smith and “The Nigerian Nightmare”, Christian Okoye. The WR’s include Andre Reed, Don Beebe, Mark Clayton, Michael Irvin, Tim Brown, Jerry Rice, Sterling Sharpe, Art Monk and one of my favorite Falcons of all time, Andre “Bad Moon” Rison. The defense is well represented as well with LT, Derrick Thomas, Howie Long, Bruce Smith, Rod Woodson, Deion Sanders, Mike Singletary, Reggie White, Charles Haley and Darrell Green. One notable absence from the defensive checklist is Ronnie Lott. Also missing is the most underrated Tecmo Bowl linebacker, Percy Snow. Finally, the rookie checklist is buoyed by Brett Favre and Ricky Watters but is otherwise light. There are a couple of major busts in the rookie class if you are into that sort of thing. Todd Marinovich is the most notable. 
If you are not a 90’s fan of football, this set may not be for you. But if you are close to my age, remember Tecmo Super Bowl and remember watching football in the late 80’s and 90’s, I don’t think you can go wrong with a box of ’91 Ultra provided the price is right. On quality alone, this set would not score very high on the Dub-o-meter but the checklist, price and nostalgic value make up for it and I can safely give it an overall score of 4. While I also gave ’92 Ultra Baseball a score of 4, it was for entirely different reasons. ’92 Ultra Baseball was a beautiful card with a slim checklist. ’91 Ultra Football is a blah card with a fantastic checklist. I wouldn’t spend more than $12 tracking a box down and I’d probably stick with one box and hope I put the set together with it. But I’m glad I bought this one. I spent $5, I put the entire set together and I reminisced of David Fulcher taking a Jim Harbaugh pick back to the house in a Super Bowl when I was 14. It was fun!
Dub Score – 4
Great rundown on this set. I also still have this set, and it is a trip down memory lane. The Barry Sanders card captures his career in a nutshell: is that LT on the ground wondering, “how did he do that?” It’s odd they didn’t include a card of Tecmo Bo, especially since he’s in the regular ’91 Fleer football set. One thing I never noticed as a kid is that the inserts were dependent on what color box/packs you had. The black box/packs had the All-Star inserts, and the green box/packs had the Ultra Performances inserts.
I was not aware of that insert tidbit either! I remain a big fan of inserts from the 90’s. On the Sanders card, that does appear to be LT. The other LB in the 50’s was Carl Banks – #58. I’d say that’s LT over Banks. That left tackle must have held their block for a minute!