This is going to be a rough road from here to the end of the year will looks like there may be a hard decision to make in the future for Aiman:
Aikman's future fraught with doubt
11/10/99
By Frank Luksa / The Dallas Morning News
IRVING - Within the next few days, Troy Aikman will confront an issue of personal gravity and franchise-crushing potential. It is his future as an NFL quarterback, and a conclusion of whether he has one.
Aikman's career with the Cowboys is in peril as his 33rd birthday approaches on the 21st of this month. A distant echo haunts the corridors at Valley Ranch. A series of concussions hastened the retirement of Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach from the Cowboys 20 years ago.
The same drama overhangs Aikman, who surely will be withheld from Sunday's game in Texas Stadium against Green Bay even if coach Chan Gailey declined to confirm the obvious Tuesday. Aikman's long-term status has assumed the guise of an unwelcome intruder with enough influence to reduce Valley Ranch to rubble.
An assessment of Aikman's fitness to play will come after medical evaluation of head injuries he suffered in consecutive games over a span of eight days. His condition will remain unknown and the source of apprehension until tests are complete. No one will know until then if his situation is serious or would ease after an extended period of rest.
Street-level reaction to Aikman's situation does not require expert definition. It's alarming and invites inevitable comparison to San Francisco quarterback Steve Young, who's presumed en route to forced retirement because of repeated concussions.
Memory also returns to a recent remark Staubach made in reference to Young that now applies to Aikman. Speaking as victim of 20 concussions dating to his schoolboy era, Staubach said: "They were getting easier to have and stronger."
Aikman's latest experience followed that general trend. He has accounted for eight concussions since his prep school days - six for certain in the NFL and widely spaced until the Sunday before last.
He suffered a fierce helmet-to-helmet hit on that date in Indianapolis and retired for one series with dizzy spells. The Cowboys medical team did not classify those symptoms or four days of lingering headaches as a concussion. Aikman sounded like he did in advance of Monday night's 27-17 loss to Minnesota.
Instead of the bravado injured athletes often adopt, Aikman made an unusually limp statement last Thursday while updating his condition. Something about how he'd hate to say he wouldn't play or that he definitely would start against the Vikings. His plan was to press on and anticipate that the headaches would subside.
This was not the tone of a player who felt all was well and dandy. Aikman's response indicated he held reservations about being fit to perform despite assurances by doctors and an all-clear from brain scans.
Official NFL concussion No. 6 visited Aikman late in the third quarter against the Vikings. A blocking-scheme lapse freed 350-pound defensive tackle Jerry Ball to trap Aikman and throw him aside. Although Aikman's head struck the turf, the collision didn't appear especially violent. Yet he was disabled.
Concerns for Aikman's health are legitimate. Family members have urged him to retire. Aikman is hard-nosed. No one doubts his commitment to the game.
But Aikman isn't hard-headed enough to risk his health for the remaining years of his life for a game. There's no reward in the world worth that gamble.
This is not to say Aikman is finished and will never play again. He probably will return after taking a week off for serious soul-searching. He might play for years.
But during this period of introspection, Aikman will be drawn to pondering morbid questions:
What if I suffer another concussion the next time out?
What if the next one is worse than the others?
If I return and play the rest of the schedule without incident, should I retire at season's end?
Nothing of the sort is going to happen, and will someone answer the phone that isn't ringing.
Forget salary cap catastrophe if Aikman goes before his allotted time. His well-being supersedes dwelling on a factor that would guarantee franchise disaster for the next decade. Every Aikman appearance from now on will be fraught with enough strain to himself and all who observe.
An ever-present thought, and fear, will attend every snap Aikman takes. Will the next time he gets hit be the last time?
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