At 6-feet-3 and 258 pounds, Cameron Wake doesn’t back down from much. Just ask quarterbacks who know what it’s like when the Dolphins’ defensive end is about to engulf them.

Jumping on quarterbacks is one thing; jumping on a football is another. So when it comes to diving for a loose ball and knowing it’ll likely place him on the bottom of a pile, Wake takes the high road.

"I get the ball and I’m out of there," Wake says. "Or I let the fat boys fall on the pile and I get out of the way."

In a league where cameras are everywhere and little is shielded from view, these human piles remain the exception. Fortunately. Here, possession is 10/10ths of the law. If there are laws.

Just consider the first few weeks of this season, when it took an eternity to untangle the messy final play of the Seahawks-Packers Monday Night Football debacle. Or the Dolphins-Texans game, when Houston defensive tackle Antonio Smith went WWE on Miami guard Richie Incognito, accusing Incognito of foul play but, in the end, getting fined himself by the NFL.

Want the lowdown on what happens down low? Brace yourself.

"Twisted ankles," Dolphins defensive end Jared Odrick says. "People trying to bend fingers back. People punching …"

"All that kind of stuff," tight end Anthony Fasano says. "Eye-poking. Even some weird stuff, like pinching. …"

"The eye-gouging and the genital rearranging," Wake says.

Incognito himself: "If you’ve never been, I can’t explain it. … It’s something you just have to experience."

Maybe you’d rather take a pass, especially if it means what Odrick experienced playing for Penn State.

"I made a tackle on an Indiana running back and two of my teammates came and hit the pile on top of me," Odrick says. "My leg bent up underneath me and people kept piling on. My foot turned so far that all these inner ligaments twisted so far that they all tore and snapped my fibula on the other side."

Odrick isn’t alone. Former defensive tackle Brentson Buckner, bitten on the wrist by an unknown opponent who apparently skipped the pre-game meal, required a post-game tetanus shot.

Former linebacker and infamous bad boy Bill Romanowski confessed to the San Jose Mercury News that in an attempt to swipe the ball from New York Giants running back Dave Meggett, the only thing he could grab was a finger, so "I ripped as hard and as fast as I could and cracked his finger like a chicken bone."

The New York Jets’ Marty Lyons was nearly as unkind to Bills quarterback Jim Kelly in 1986. This put referee Ben Dreith in a bind.

Lyons’ tackle itself was perfect. It was what Lyons did, unseen by most, that drew the flag. So for an official who prided himself in thoroughly explaining calls, Dreith turned on his microphone and said the first thing that came to mind.

"Personal foul on No. 99 of the defense," Dreith said. "After he tackled the quarterback, he’s giving him the business down there. That’s a 15-yard penalty."

Now 87 years old and living outside Denver, Dreith knows his hilarious call — complete with a brief demonstration of Lyons’ act — will forever shadow him.

"Right now, get on the computer and search for me," Dreith says of his YouTube fame.

"If I threw a flag, I couldn’t not tell them why I threw the flag," Dreith says. "They’d say it was a lousy call. The tackle was good, but he was giving him the business. People couldn’t tell. All the players piled on."

An all-time low may come from former Jets center Kevin Mawae’s high school days in Louisiana. He saw a teammate grabbing a shoestring from the equipment box on the sideline. The teammate informed Mawae he was going to choke somebody.

"And sure enough in the next series, we’re at the bottom of a pile and he’s got his shoelace strapped about the guy’s throat," Mawae told The News of Westchester, N.Y.

Which must mean Dolphins fullback/tight end Charles Clay got off easy after scoring a touchdown for Tulsa. Uncertain whether the ball came loose before Clay reached the end zone, an opponent took it as a green light to gouge Clay’s eyes, Three Stooges style, in the pile.

Clay asked one official if he’d seen it. The official said he had, then advised Clay to remove his face from the guy’s hand.

"I’d rather just score a touchdown without having my eyes gouged out," Clay says.

Go figure. As for succeeding in these piles, veterans say that’s an art form.

"Not laying on top of the ball," Fasano says. "You’ve got to kind of cradle it, like the fetal position. On top of the ball, I think you have some vulnerabilities." (The ball could pop out or the weight on you could force the ball deep into your mid-section, making it hard to breathe.)

Wake, meanwhile, remains steadfast in his personal policy. No fat guys pancaking him.

"You think about it," Wake says, gesturing toward teammates’ lockers, "300 plus 300 plus 300 plus 300 — you’ve got 1,200, 1,400 pounds, literally squishing you."

Yeah. Giving you the business.