2023 Clearly Donruss Football

What this release is

This set is built around acetate cards, so the first thing collectors notice is the material itself. The cards have a clear, glossy feel that separates them from standard paper stock and from chromium-style releases in the same brand family. That choice matters here because the design is not trying to reinvent Donruss so much as give its familiar look a cleaner, more premium presentation.

The checklist sits under the 2023 Donruss banner and is framed as the completion point of the brand’s seasonal trio alongside Donruss and Donruss Optic. For collectors who track the brand across formats, that makes Clearly Donruss a natural companion piece rather than a standalone reinvention. Its appeal comes from seeing familiar Donruss elements in a different build.

Base set and rookie chase

The master set is 100 cards and is divided into two sections. Veterans make up 50 cards, and the other 50 are Rated Rookies. That structure gives the release a clean collecting path: one lane for established players, another for first-year names, all in the same acetate style.

The base set has a range of parallels, with Blue and Red among the documented color options. A one-of-one Black Spider pattern also appears among the parallels, giving the checklist a clear chase element without changing the overall design approach. Because the set uses the year’s Donruss design, the difference is less about a new layout and more about how the acetate surface changes the presentation.

Collectors who like building by player group may prefer the base checklist first, since the 50 veteran cards and the 50 Rated Rookies create a balanced starting point. Others may focus on parallel collecting, where the color and pattern variations become the main way to build a more complete run.

Autographs and signature choices

Clearly Rated Rookies Autographs are a major part of the checklist, with 47 on record. These keep the same design language as the base cards while using the acetate format to separate them visually. For collectors, that makes the autograph cards feel tied directly to the set rather than treated as a separate insert line.

Additional signature content appears in Clearly versions of Champions Autographs, My House Autographs, Retro Autographs, and The Rookies Autographs. Those names mirror themes found elsewhere in the Donruss ecosystem, so this release offers several ways to collect autographs without leaving the product’s identity behind. The important point is that these are theme-based autograph routes, not separate products, and each one fits the Clearly styling.

If your collecting preference is player-driven, the autographs here offer multiple lanes: rookie-focused, retro-leaning, or tied to broader Donruss insert concepts. That makes the set especially useful for collectors who like chasing signatures within a recognizable visual framework rather than across unrelated designs.

Insert themes and collecting angle

The insert lineup includes Downtown, Gridiron Marvels, My House, Night Moves, The Rookies, and NU-Clear. Those names tell you a lot about the range of the set: some are familiar Donruss staples, while others lean into the set’s clear, modern presentation. The result is a release that can be collected in more than one way, depending on whether you enjoy character-driven inserts, rookies, or visually distinct chase cards.

Because the inserts are part of a broader Donruss brand family, they are best understood as theme continuations within the 2023 Clearly Donruss format rather than as standalone promises about every version of the product. The practical collecting choice is simple: decide whether you want the acetate base cards, the rookie autographs, or the named insert lines to be the center of the build. A focused approach works well here because the set offers several paths, but each one has a different feel.