Let me set the stage for you: It's a frigid fall day. You and your pals are locked in a 13-13 tie after gutting out a game of pigskin for the last 3 and a 1/2 hours. Sadly, several of your best buds haven't made it this far - cracked endoskeleton, torn ligaments, and dehydration. Most of you can barely breathe. Your jersey tips an 8 extra lbs from when you started, loaded up with epidermis juice and a dab of crimson (some of which has your blood type). You've told everyone the game will be done by 4:30, but no one is throwing in the towel just yet. But just as the "never say die" thought breaststrokes through your mind the minute hand strikes 6 and Jimmy's mother implores everyone off the field from her nearby parked Winnebago. Both teams stampede off, change into their suit and sit down to a nice hot bowl of Campbell's Chunky Soup content with the draw. Pretty ridiculous, right?

Now pull out and imagine that 70,000 people are in this park. A few million more are getting the feed on their couch, tens of millions have been wagered on the game's outcome and several hundred million in revenue potentially hang in the balance for the municipality of the winning team.
You think you'd let the game go on?

The sports world is killing Donovan McNabb now for saying he didn't know the game could end in a tie, but they're completely missing the point.

1. Do you ever expect your QB to consider playing for a tie? Do you even want that thought in his head playing against one of the bottom-3 teams in the league?
2. In a game that's in sudden-death overtime do you think he isn't trying his hardest to end the game every second?
3. How often do you check your team's schedule and think to yourself "gee, I think we might be able to score the same amount of points as them."

Sure, the idea of him not knowing a pretty basic rule comes off as pretty ignorant but I'm just not buying it. He was in the league in 2002 when one occurred and I'm pretty sure he knows what the "T" stands for next to the "W" and "L" in the standings column. I find it hard to swallow that Donovan hasn't played his fair share of video games considering he's graced the cover on a few occasions (Side note: If I was ever on the cover of Madden whenever I had a friend over I'm flaunting that thing in his face - "oh, my goodness, however did my Madden Game get into the Pulp Fiction DVD case") Donovan's a smart guy and beyond media savvy, he's simply drawing a flood of media attention to highlight the stupidity of such a rule by pleading ignorance.

And why not? In a game considered to be our modern day version of Gladiators (not the spandex wearing kind) why are we calling the game early? Football can soldier on through torrential downpours, sleet, hail, rain, hurricane winds but not a 75 minute time period? Can the players not handle it? Can guys who go out there with reconstructed faces, shredded rotator cuffs and broken digits severed off during halftime not handle the extra exercise?

The NFL likes to pound their chest over physically inferior sports like the MLB, but oddly enough baseball doesn't believe in ties. Games have gone 25 innings and 8 hours and they still didn't blow the whistle...err play Sinatra over the loud speaker. That in a sport where the defense has a commanding advantage and the offense has to hit a 95MPH moving projectile. Theoretically, a baseball game can go on forever. ESPN isn't cutting into its broadcast to go live to a 0-0 baseball game in extra innings. But name me the last time an overtime settled an NFL game of goose eggs?

In football, all it takes is a missed tackle, a bad foot plant in turf, or one perfectly executed play. That's sort of what makes the NFL so exciting (and successful) the outcome of the game is always so flimsy. So why the hell would you ever call it a draw?

As George Carlin's baseball/football bit goes:

Baseball has no time limit: we don't know when it's gonna end - might have extra innings.
Football is rigidly timed, and it will end even if we've got to go to sudden death.

...unless of course the clock runs out...in which case everyone goes home unhappy.