Pro Line Portraits was a new line of football cards introduced to the hobby at the Anaheim National in 1991 by NFL Properties, designed to present NFL players & wives in casual NFL logo wear (to promote sales of licensed NFL wear). The set was one continuous series, overlapping years, and it was intended that players would appear only once on a card in this continuous multi-year set (this concept was used from 1991 to 1993. The key highlight of the card set were the one per box (or two or three) player autographs. In 1993, NFL turned over league products Pro Line to Classic (later Scoreboard), and Game Day to Fleer.

Apparently each player signed about 2,000 of each card in 1992. Meanwhile, as the product was by NFL Properties, NFLP produced a small number of sets only for VIP (ie for the NFL owners, and for the players signing at the National) distribution. These special VIP sets were embossed "THE NATIONAL" with a very short run of around 100 sets, much rarer than the certified autographs, both in 1991 and 1992.

Although the 'certified autograph' inserts are listed and priced in Beckett, the much rarer 'National' cards are only briefly mentioned in the introductory text to the set, and are not priced due to their rarity.

Beckett's text mentions these cards were 'promos' ... which is partly true in 1991, as some of these unnumbered cards were distributed directly to the public at 1991's National (to launch this new product) for the purpose of obtaining autographs of those players who appeared. After being autographed, the cards could be embossed by the machine "THE NATIONAL 1991" ... however, some cards were embossed even though they had not been signed. However, 1991's approach was not adopted at the 1992 Atlanta National, and no "THE NATIONAL 1992" cards were distributed directly to the public at the 1992 National, the sets were distributed only to the players signing (kind of as an 'appearance bonus').