Starting Lineup figurines were always cool, but they always felt just a bit too prim and proper for the real sports fan. Sure, it was a great rendering of Lenny Dykstra that we had, but the attention to detail just sucked all the fun out of it.

Upper Deck is doing its best to fix that with its new line of poseable, and slightly cartoonish, vinyl NFL action figures. Yea, these aren’t figurines. They’re much, much cooler.

“We’ve made great strides in our own hobby marketplace with earlier launches of the All-Star Vinyl line, which was configured in extremely limited quantities for the hardcore sports and vinyl figure collector,” said Dave Sanders, director of Upper Deck Authenticated, Upper Deck’s memorabilia division. “But now the popular comic-stylized look of the ASV line will be available to sports fans and consumers through a new retail-based configuration sold exclusively at Toys “R” Us stores.”

This product launch will represent Upper Deck’s first direct-to-retail toy line for its growing sports collectibles business. This latest line of the nine-inch-tall ASV sports figures, which will be on store shelves during the first week of November, includes NFL quarterbacks Donovan McNabb, Tony Romo, Eli Manning, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, along with elite running back LaDainian Tomlinson. Packaged inside a stylish, dual-panel window box, each of the full-color ASV figures comes complete with its own Upper Deck trading card touting the concept art, featured athlete and the artist behind the articulated figures.

They’re pretty inexpensive, ranging from $19.99 to $24.99, so it won’t empty your wallet when you buy a few, ostensibly for your kids only to keep them at the office for yourself. If you’re not a big football fan, Upper Deck notes that future figures will come from all other major sports leagues and will feature notables like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Tiger Woods and Muhammad Ali.

Available exclusively at Toys “R” Us
Upper Deck Launches New All-Star Vinyl Sports Figures Exclusively at Toys “R” Us Locations [PR Newswire]