Pro Football Hall of Fame Yearbook

The inaugural Pro Football Hall of Fame Yearbook is ready to hit newsstands across the country.

"This is a dynamic new venture for us," commented the Hall's President/Executive Director Steve Perry. "We're sure that fans nationwide will enjoy the many entertaining features on our Hall of Fame members and others who’ve made the sport of pro football so special.”

The yearbook is now available through the Pro Football Hall of Fame's online store and will be in the Hall's museum store in time for the Hall of Fame Weekend.

The 192-page magazine includes feature stories on the Class of 2006 written by some of the country's best football writers. In addition, football fans will enjoy an up-close look and the stories behind some of the Hall's greatest treasures.

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Excerpt from the Hall's new yearbook

The following is an excerpt from Rick Gosselin's feature on Class of 2006 enshrinee Troy Aikman.

The Cowboys didn't throw for the sake of throwing. So statistically, Aikman pales in comparison to some of his peers (and future peers) in Canton. Steve Young won six NFL passing titles. Aikman didn't win any. Brett Favre won three NFL MVP awards. Aikman didn't win any. Dan Marino passed for 300 yards an NFL record 63 times. Aikman did it 13 times. John Elway rallied his team to 47 fourth-quarter victories. Aikman only engineered 16 of those comebacks. Warren Moon passed for 4,000 yards in four NFL seasons. Aikman never had a 4,000-yard season.

"I feel bad for him," Johnson would say years later. "We could have done things to pad his stats. He could have done what all those other guys were doing. But his sole focus was winning the game. The stats didn't matter to him."

Winning did. And that's where Aikman stands alone in history. He won more games in one decade (90) than any quarterback in NFL history -- 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 both enshrined in Canton. Aikman's own statistics were the trade-off for a return to greatness by America's Team.

"They (statistics) would have been nice," Aikman said. "Everyone wants to do things that enhance their production. But it never got under my skin. I never gave it a lot of thought. We were winning. If we weren't winning, that might have been tough.

"Ultimately, at the end of the day, it was whether we won or not. If you throw for 4,000 yards and we go 5-11, what good would it have done?"

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