2026 Topps Midnight Football: Three Autographs, Rookie Relics and a November 13 Date

Jalen Hurts’ Stroke of Midnight preview gets the appeal across in one card: Eagles green against a purple galaxy, a glowing clock face and a blue signature sweeping across a bright white band. There is plenty happening around him, but the autograph still has room to breathe. That balance is what makes this particular Midnight design work.

The 2026 release backs up that look with three autographs in a seven-card hobby box, a $539.99 Topps preorder price and November 13 availability. Fernando Mendoza has seven autograph families to follow, while the veteran signatures and Constellations pairings give player and team collectors very different targets.

The box, the price and the November date

Topps’ current product page gives November 13 as the availability date. The EQL hobby preorder priced a box at $539.99, with one pack, seven cards and three Chrome autographs. The sealed-case preorder was $4,319.99 for eight boxes.

The October 12 promotion concerned the preorder rollout. That EQL window has ended—Topps’ launch index currently has no live launches—while November 13 remains the product-page availability date. The preorder price describes that offer, rather than a box currently available to order there.

Veteran ink has a real place in this checklist

Stroke of Midnight Autographs is the veteran-focused group that first catches our eye. Its 15-name checklist includes Hurts, Dan Marino, John Elway, Joe Montana and Tom Brady. The Hurts preview uses the clock as a frame around the player, with the bright autograph area cutting across the darker background. His green uniform gives the card another strong point of contrast.

The team designation is worth checking within each signature family. Topps lists Brady with the New England Patriots in Stroke of Midnight and with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Dark Matter Autographs. A Brady collection built around his Patriots years has a different target from one following his Buccaneers chapter, even within this same product.

Dark Matter Autographs has 30 checklist entries, including Jerry Rice, Barry Sanders and Peyton Manning alongside Josh Allen, Joe Burrow and Justin Jefferson. Stroke of Midnight’s 15 names make it the more concentrated veteran group; Dark Matter offers a wider selection of players and team eras. The separate Base Cards Autographs checklist spans 75 entries, mixing rookies with established players. Those are checklist counts, not equal-pull probabilities.

The rookie autograph families differ, too: Midnight Oil Marks lists 28 entries, Rookie Horizon Signatures 35 and Tenebrous Traces 20. Mendoza appears in all three, but Love and Tate do not appear in Rookie Horizon. For those two players, Midnight Oil Marks and Tenebrous Traces are the direct alternatives to their base autographs and autograph-relic cards. The full Topps checklist makes those player-by-player differences clear.

Two rookie relic designs with very different personalities

REM Relic Autographs takes the horizontal route. In the Jeremiyah Love preview, two circular memorabilia windows flank the player, while a wide autograph space runs beneath him. The swatches, player photograph and signature each have a clear place in the composition. The broad layout makes the two pieces of fabric a prominent part of the card.

Jeremiyah Love, REM Relic Autographs, Moonrise promotional preview. Image: Topps.

Moonlit Materials Signatures builds around a large moon and an upright layout. Carson Beck’s preview places the player on the left, a single memorabilia window on the right and the autograph below. The angular window and visible clothing-label detail give that example a different texture from Love’s paired fabric windows. Both previews carry player-worn memorabilia wording; neither image establishes game-used provenance.

Carson Beck, Moonlit Materials Signatures promotional preview. Image: Topps.

REM’s strongest design choice is the separation of its main elements: the signature stays easy to see even with two relic windows sharing the card. Moonlit Materials has more overlap and a more layered appearance. Beck appears on both autograph-relic checklists, giving his collectors two distinct layouts to follow within this release.

Rookie Jersey Autographs is the third autograph-relic family, with 31 checklist entries versus 24 for Moonlit Materials and 23 for REM. Mendoza, Love, Tate and Beck appear in all three. The lists are not interchangeable: Kenyon Sadiq has a Rookie Jersey Autograph but no entry in the other two, while Cole Payton appears in Rookie Jersey and REM but not Moonlit Materials. A player collector can narrow the relevant designs before sorting through their parallels.

Constellations gives team collectors a strong reason to look

The Constellations insert checklist pairs Josh Allen with Jim Kelly, Randy Moss with Justin Jefferson, and Tom Brady with Drake Maye. Those combinations give Bills, Vikings and Patriots collectors a connection between different eras on one card.

Other pairings bring two members of the same offense together: Joe Burrow with Ja’Marr Chase, Patrick Mahomes II with Travis Kelce, and Brock Bowers with Ashton Jeanty. Constellations gives a Bengals collector Burrow and Chase on one checklist entry, while the Patriots pairing links Brady’s era with Maye’s.

Where the short-print chase points

Topps identifies the returning Twilight and new Night Night and Celestial Roots among its short-print chases. The checklist places Mendoza, Love and Tate in both Celestial Roots and Twilight, giving those rookie collections more than one insert route through Midnight. Veterans and established stars appear in those groups too.

Mendoza’s autograph route is unusually complete within Midnight: Base Cards Autographs, Midnight Oil Marks, Rookie Horizon Signatures, Tenebrous Traces, Moonlit Materials Signatures, REM Relic Autographs and Rookie Jersey Autographs. That is seven distinct families, before following his unsigned inserts. Love and Tate each appear in six of those seven, missing Rookie Horizon. Mendoza collectors can pursue a signature-only design or one of three autograph-relic layouts; the meaningful choice is the card’s design and memorabilia format, rather than treating every Mendoza autograph as the same chase.