PHILADELPHIA -- Tie? What tie?

Thanks to Donovan McNabb, players around the league 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.

A day after the Philadelphia Eagles and Cincinnati Bengals played to 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 professional football players, especially a 10-year veteran such as McNabb, don't know simple rules about overtimes 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 Monday. "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."

Reid ignored the point. Whether the players' ignorance about the overtime rule affected the outcome is debatable. It's inconceivable and embarrassing that some of them didn't know a game can end in a tie.