Gentlemen, thank you for your posts.
First of all, I disagree that mass-production began in the late 1980s, because like John pointed out, there are a million 1976 Walter Payton rookies out there. I also disagree with the criteria that in order for any card to be considered mass-produced, its value has to be near to zero. America's population is huge and there will always be demand. Even the 1989 Score Barry Sanders RC brings in some money and if you lined these cards up side-by-side, you could probably circle the earth a couple of times.
Now maybe I shouldn't have called the Brown and Unitas rookies mass-produced, but there are still so many of them out there, especially compared to hockey.
And I don't think that you football collectors should consider yourselves "lucky" because mid-grade HOF rookies can be purchased for a few hundred. Don't you want the value of your collection to grow? A mid-grade 1958 Topps Bobby Hull RC can fetch around $2,000 and anyone who purchased it for $1,000 is obviously going to be really happy about that. Now a 1951 Parkhurst Gordie Howe RC is probably at least $3,000. These mid-grade HOF football rookies won't go up by much in value because there are too many of them out there.