OT: Favre Retires

...then the cowboys turned it over to #22 for the (entire) second half?

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/football/nfl/halloffame/stories/020506cpaikmanfeat.4 614c6c8.html

Wonder why Aikman had so few 300-yard passing games in his career? He was usually done throwing by halftime.

In those 158 starts, he threw 10 passes or fewer in the second half of 36 games. There were 13 other second halves that he threw 10 times or fewer because of an injury or because his coaches opted to rest him in a blowout.

So in 31 percent of his starts in the 1990s, Aikman barely threw the ball enough in the second half to keep warm. It's difficult amassing passing statistics when you're not passing.

From 1992 to '96 when the Cowboys won five straight division titles, Aikman threw 243 fewer passes in the second half of games than in the first. He passed for 8,864 yards and 51 touchdowns in the first halves but only 6,787 yards and 28 TDs in the second.

For the 1990s, Aikman threw 294 fewer passes in the second half than the first. He passed for 15,606 yards and 86 touchdowns in the first halves compared with 3,954 yards and 63 TDs in the second.

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Aikman won more games in one decade (90) than any quarterback in NFL history. Yes, more than Young in the 1990s, Joe Montana in the 1980s and Terry Bradshaw in the 1970s. Aikman also won three Super Bowls. The only two quarterbacks who won more, Montana and Bradshaw, are enshrined in Canton.

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"I had a lot of confidence in my abilities," Aikman said. "If we had thrown more than we did, there's no doubt in my mind we'd have put up big numbers. But it's not what we did. We won without
it. I'm content with that.

"If you throw for 4,000 yards in a season and we go 5-11, what's the difference?"

earlier in the article:

Facing a secondary that featured Deion Sanders, who, in his prime, was supposed to be able to take away half the field from an offense, Troy Aikman completed 15 of 17 passes in the first half for 196 yards and two touchdowns, staking the Cowboys to a 20-10 lead.

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But the game was essentially over by the time the Cowboys turned the ball over to Smith. Aikman threw only three more passes the rest of night, finishing 18-of-21 for 239 yards and three touchdowns.