When she looks out the window from her office at Troy Aikman Enterprises, Charlyn Aikman can sometimes see Dallas Cowboys players running earnestly around orange cones. For the first time in 13 years, her son isn't among those would-be Cowboys working out at Valley Ranch in Irving, Texas.

The office sits across the parking lot from the locked back gate at Valley Ranch. Presumably, Troy returned his personal key after the Cowboys cut him March 7 to avoid paying a $7 million roster bonus that would have extended his contract through 2007. The Cowboys wanted to push the bonus due date to June 1, but Aikman insisted on an immediate release.

	Troy Aikman threw for a career-low 1,632 yards and 7 TDs in 2000.

The quarterback, 34, still wants to play.

"Growing up in California, Troy started playing football when he was seven or eight," said Charlyn, Troy's mother. "It's hard to walk away from something you've been doing that long. I don't think it really matters where as long as he's the starter.

"For a lot of these guys, it's 'How can I keep playing?' The details don't matter much.' "

Aikman is young by the standards of NFL icons. John Elway contemplated retirement after the Denver Broncos won Super Bowl XXXII, then triumphed again as the MVP in Super Bowl XXXIII -- at the age of 38. It is that image of Elway, jubilantly holding the Vince Lombardi trophy aloft, that represents the best-case upside of staying in the game. The downside? Consider the famous black and white photograph of Y.A. Tittle toward the end of his career in the mid-1960s. The Hall of Fame quarterback is literally on his knees, blood trickling down his face, and the anguished look on his face says more than several thousand words.

The vast majority of his friends, family and advisors, fearing a Tittlesque revelation, want Aikman to retire. He has suffered concussions in double figures (at least 10 or 11), four of them in the last 21 starts. He has a degenerative back condition and hasn't played a full season since 1997.

Still, the warrior he was bred to be wants to continue the fight. The fire in him, at this moment, anyway, is mitigating a stack of cold, rational medical arguments.

"A lot of people, they get minute feedback from their job -- for these guys, especially quarterbacks, it's right there, it's instant," said Leigh Steinberg, Aikman's agent. "There's that adrenaline charge of being on the edge. That's a thrill. And then there is the attention. Some of the athletes try to deny it -- they don't care, they don't read the papers -- but they do."

Aikman's thoughts are largely private. He recently granted a one-hour interview with the Dallas Morning News, but shed very little light on his future plans.

"I'm not going to play come hell or high water," Aikman said. "The situation has to be right. No one questions my ability; it's my health that has people concerned."

Steinberg, who negotiated Aikman's first contract back in 1989, is in a delicate position. He has helped to set up his client with all kinds of post-football options: U.S. Senator, CEO, television star, philanthropist. Privately, Steinberg has been pushing retirement; he has immersed himself in concussion research and cites new studies that suggest head injuries can lead to Parkinson's disease and premature senility. Publicly, he has been neutral.

"My job here," Steinberg said, "is to allow Troy to come to a decision in such a way that it will be a decision now and for the future. It is not helpful to any of the parties involved if he gets rushed or pushed into something."

Trend: Graceful exits
It has been a tough couple of years for future Hall of Fame quarterbacks. Elway, Steve Young and Dan Marino have all walked away from the game under their own power -- decisions that were widely applauded. All three could have continued playing -- Elway in Denver, Marino in Minnesota and Young someplace other than San Francisco with a note from his neurologist.

	John Elway ended his career with a second straight title and Super Bowl MVP award.

Is it a trend? Possibly. With today's salaries and endorsement opportunities, all three quarterbacks have vast financial empires and business challenges ahead of them. Aikman, too, has invested wisely and has an array of possibilities awaiting him.

So, after winning three Super Bowl rings in Dallas, why would Aikman want to drop back and throw passes for, say, the Kansas City Chiefs? For the same reason Joe Montana left San Francisco and donned the red and white for two forgettable seasons.

Because he could.

"Because," said Dr. Alan Goldberg, "this is what they do. This is who they are. It's their sense of identity. They are quarterbacks. When you give that up, a lot of professional athletes go into this identity confusion."

Goldberg, through The Competitive Advantage in Amherst, Mass., has counseled athletes on all levels.

"Being a QB is the way they get their goodies, the way they define themselves and get their egos stroked," Goldberg said. "They think, 'If I' m not doing this, who am I and how do I feel good about myself?' There's nothing but emptiness there when you stop."

Dr. Elliot Pellman is the NFL's foremost authority on concussions or, as the league likes to call it, mild traumatic brain injury. He chairs the subcommittee of that name and has advised numerous players, including Chris Miller, Boomer Esiason and Al Toon. Pellman wasn't at liberty to discuss the specifics of the Aikman case, but he offered some general thoughts.

"People have stopped playing on my advice," said Pellman, who has been a team doctor with the Jets for 14 seasons. "Those people had reached a threshold in their careers. Intellectually, they got it.

"It's a non-specific science, and we all understand the science of concussions is not where it should be. It's not like heart disease -- you can 't do an angiogram. This involves psychological testing, and history. It's excruciating. Every guy I've said shouldn't play, has regrets later on."

Johnny Unitas harbors no such regrets. After playing for the Baltimore Colts from 1956-72, the Hall of Fame quarterback was a victim of management flux. When Robert Irsay swapped the Rams for the Colts with Carroll Rosenbloom, he installed Joe Thomas as general manager. Thomas promptly traded the NFL's all-time leader in passing yardage to the San Diego Chargers.

"If there was a team in Alaska, he would have traded me there," said Unitas. "I had the opportunity to go to Washington, but if I had succeeded there, Joe Thomas has got pie on his face.

"There wasn't any question in my mind. I could still play. The problem was where I was traded. I was traded to a piss-poor team ... and the NFL didn't want to do anything about it."

Unitas could have walked away, but he didn't. In a sequence that would be mirrored four years later when Joe Namath parted ways with the Jets and played a single season with the Rams, the end for Unitas was grisly.

He played in five games for the Chargers in 1973. He completed only 34 of 76 passes for 471 yards, three touchdowns and seven interceptions. Unitas' passer rating was 40.0, the second lowest of his career.

Tide of sentiment
Aikman told an ESPN reporter about a month ago that, considering the anemic state of quarterbacking in the NFL, he still considered himself the third- or fourth-best passer in the league. To be sure, quarterbacks are take-charge leaders; sometimes they begin to believe the things they say in the huddle to inspire teammates.

The numbers do not support Aikman's belief. He missed five games and parts of three others last season, threw twice as many interceptions (14) as touchdowns (seven) and posted the second-worst passer rating of his career (64.3), the lowest rating of an NFC starter.

On the surface, tepid NFL interest seems to suggest personnel men feel the numbers aren't lying. On the surface, anyway.

The ideal situation for Aikman appeared to be the San Diego Chargers, where old mentor Norv Turner is the new offensive coordinator. But one day after he became a free agent, the Chargers signed Doug Flutie, four years Aikman's senior. The Kansas City Chiefs, the obvious remaining possibility for a starter's position, are still talking to the Rams about Trent Green, a sign that they're not comfortable with the prospect of Aikman. Two other teams, however, Miami and Denver, have expressed interest in Aikman. And then there are the handful of situations that appear set that could come apart before training camp.

	“	You've got to be smart, here. There should be no doubt. What'd he have, 11 concussions? It's a medical issue. I think it's a fairly easy decision to make. ”
		— Johnny Unitas on Troy Aikman

Options, it seems, are not the real issue. Aikman will have to weigh these situations against the pleas of those closest to him.

Roger Staubach, the old Cowboys quarterback and Aikman friend, is on record supporting Aikman's retirement. So is Ernie Zampese, another coaching mentor. And then there is the family factor. Young, also a Steinberg client, was recently married and the couple is expecting their first child. Marino cited his family, which includes five children, as a big factor in his decision.

"Troy is in the same situation," Charlyn Aikman said. "He's newly married with a child on the way. Your family can help you make that decision."

Troy Aikman and his wife Rhonda, who were married a year ago, also have an 11-year-old daughter, Rachel, Aikman's step-child. Rhonda is said to be letting him come to his own decision.

Pellman said families are one of the biggest ingredients in a player's decision to retire. "When families are behind it," Pellman said, "someone's whispering, 'We have kids. I think you'd like to see those kids grow up.' "

According to Goldberg, the thought of a sedentary life at home conflicts dramatically with the thrills of the game.

"It's the Michael Jordan factor," he said. "These guys love the competition. It fuels them. What happened to a lot of Vietnam veterans when they came back, they had lived on adrenaline and having their life constantly on the line. When they got back, they acted out like crazy.

"A lot of pro athletes, on some level, never really grow up. It's delayed adolescence, but you have to give it up. For Elway, Young and Aikman, sure, there's a lot going on in their lives. But that doesn't make the decision any easier."

Aikman's place in NFL history, at least, is secure. He amassed more wins in the 1990s (90) than any quarterback in any other decade. Montana and Pittsburgh's Terry Bradshaw are the only quarterbacks with more Super Bowl rings.

Steinberg said one variable that has yet to come into play is television. If the right offer were to come along, Steinberg said, it might sway Aikman.

Steinberg's essential message: All in good time.

"People expect these things to happen the day after," he said. "Would it really have happened the next day in their own life? Would you really be ready to say I have no more utility at all?

"At the end of it, Steve Young has gone on to a happy life. He made a good decision. That's all people remember, that he made a good decision, not that it took a few months."

It is worth noting that in recent years Aikman counseled teammates Michael Irvin and Daryl Johnston to retire after suffering severe neck injuries. While Aikman's career numbers are hardly incendiary -- he never threw for more than 4,000 yards in a season -- the hallmark of his game was good decision-making.

Will his flawless, intuitive judgment continue?

"You've got to be smart, here," Unitas said. "There should be no doubt. What'd he have, 11 concussions? It's a medical issue. I think it's a fairly easy decision to make.

"For him and Steve Young, there's got to be other things in their life, like family had a lot going for him and Aikman does too. And money can't be a factor, because they've already got most of it."

Greg Garber is a senior writer for ESPN.com.