Eagles' McNabb didn't know rule - arm-chair quarterbacks whine about him being overpaid lol

http://www.boston.com/sports/football/articles/2008/11/18/not_a_real_good_looking_tie/

Thanks to Donovan McNabb, players around the NFL now must know there doesn't have to be a winner or loser in every regular-season game. Yes, there are ties in the NFL. They just don't happen too often.

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A day after the Eagles and Bengals played a 13-13 tie - the league's first since 2002 - the focus wasn't on how poorly the teams performed on the field. Instead, everyone wanted to know how it's possible some pro football players, especially a 10-year veteran such as McNabb, don't know simple rules about overtime games.

"I'm sure there are plenty of rules that guys don't understand, but I don't think that has any factor whatsoever to do with the outcome of this game and how they played in the overtime," Eagles coach Andy Reid said yesterday. "I think that's absurd. You play to win in that time, whether you think you have another overtime period or you don't. And you play your heart out to win it in that time, and that's how we approached it and that's how the players approached it."

The Eagles now have played 12 OT games, including one in the playoffs, since McNabb joined the team in 1999. Yet, the five-time Pro Bowl quarterback didn't know ties were possible until his desperation pass fell incomplete at the end of the fifth quarter.

"I've never been a part of a tie. I never even knew that was in the rule book," McNabb said after the game. "It's part of the rules, and we have to go with it. I was looking forward to getting the opportunity to get out there and try to drive to win the game. But unfortunately, with the rules, we settled with a tie."

The overtime rule isn't an obscure one. It was adopted fully by the NFL in 1974 and 17 games since have ended tied. The Eagles have been involved in four of those games.

"I guess we're aware of it now," McNabb said. "In college, there are multiple overtimes, and in high school and Pop Warner. I never knew in the pro ranks it would end that way. I hate to see what would happen in the Super Bowl and in the playoffs."

They keep playing if it's tied in the playoffs or Super Bowl. But McNabb didn't know that, either.