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CHARLOTTE - An uneasiness settled in over NFL camps this weekend, not after the results from Sunday's games started coming in, and not after the crucial midseason standings became clearer, but just after Donovan McNabb opened his mouth and uttered the unutterable.

The quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles had just engineered a 13-13 overtime tie with the Cincinnati Bengals when he stood before a bank of cameras and said he didn't know that ties counted in the NFL. He assumed the game was going to continue after overtime.

And then he compounded it by making an unbelievable statement.

"I hate to see what happens in the Super Bowl, or I hate to see what happens in the playoffs," McNabb said. "You have to settle with a tie."

Um, no Donovan. See the rules are different for ... oh, forget it.

The story landed hard in NFL locker rooms as it made its way around, and Wednesday was the day of reckoning in for every player willing to face cameras, including the Carolina Panthers.

The reaction falls into three categories: The quarterbacks all back McNabb, as best they can. The rule-book guys all feign horror that someone could be playing in the NFL and not know the rules. The rest, and this is apparently a very large number, admit they don't know all the rules, either.

Jake Delhomme, the Panthers' starting quarterback, held his hands to his chest and expressed support for McNabb.

"I think he's getting a lot of flak over this," Delhomme said of his fellow quarterback. "We've got to protect our own. A lot of guys don't know, and a lot of guys are too proud to say they don't know."

How many, he wouldn't say. But linebacker Na'il Diggs did.

"Ninety percent," he said. "I bet 90 percent would say something like, 'Yeah, we have three overtimes. Or we play until somebody scores.' I mean, you never see ties."

It seems hard to believe that the athletes playing in one of the top sports in the world, a game learned by children, teenagers and grown men alike, could be playing without knowing the rules. But almost to a player, they'll either admit they don't or, in Diggs' mind, lie to you.

"Have you ever seen our rule book?" he asked. "There are rules out there we don't know. We get fined for it, too."

"We know those rules," said teammate Jason Kyle, standing nearby. "Those are ones we remember."

The smartest players on any NFL team are the offensive linemen. No one knows why, but it's true. And one of the smartest Panthers is tackle Jordan Gross. The communications major from Utah is often one of the players needed to explain concepts such as zone blocking and two-gap theory and the vagaries of modern agriculture in a disappearing agrarian society.

Reporters went straight to Gross on Wednesday to ask him the question all NFL players are being asked this week. Do you know all the rules?

"Not all of them, no," he said.

It was just Sunday, the same day as McNabb's gaffe, that Gross found himself in the end zone with tight end Jeff King in the giddy seconds after King caught a touchdown pass against the Lions.

"Kinger scored the touchdown and then handed the ball to me and told me to spike it, and I wouldn't do it because I didn't want to get a penalty," he said. "I didn't know if it was a penalty or not for excessive celebration."

Gross noticed the stunned silence of those who'd previously assumed he was among the smartest players in the room.

"I know all the rules that I need to know," he said.

That's not good enough for coach John Fox, of course. He'd stated about 30 minutes earlier that he didn't like the word "assume" and had done all he could do to assure himself that his players knew the rules of the game they're being paid to play.

"We meet about them, we talk about them, we meet in the offseason, and everybody has mandated meetings with the officials," Fox said. "We have them at training camp, we have them at Fan Fest, they sit in meetings, go over tape. A lot of it's just everyday stuff."

And a lot of it's not. Just a few seasons ago, the Panthers ran afoul of the rules when cornerback Doug Evans carried an interception out of the side of the end zone, breaking a rule that no one knew about or understood, possibly even coach George Seifert, who was evasive about it afterward. The ruling resulted in an Atlanta safety and became known as the "Doug Evans rule" in NFL circles.

But not for long. They changed it as a result of no one understanding it. They won't change the overtime rule anytime soon, even though there's a consensus among NFL players about what happened Sunday: Ties are stupid.

Contact Ed Hard in at 373-7069 or ed.hardin@news-record.com