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49ers-Rams tie: Player reactions provide plenty of confusion

The highlight of the 49ers 24-24 tie with the Rams has to be the fact that a lot of players still don't know the overtime rules.

Thearon W. Henderson

As confused as we are by the 49ers-Rams 24-24 tie, it appears some of the players were also confused by the tie.

This all reminds me of Donovan McNabb's lack of knowledge about overtime a few years back. The rules have since changed, but that doesn't make it any easier for players to know what's going on. You have to wonder at times how frequently players pay attention to this kind of stuff.

Obviously some do know the basic rules, but that doesn't make them feel any less conflicted by the odd result.

This game marked the first NFL tie since 2008, and the first 49ers tie since a 10-10 tie against the Atlanta Falcons in 1986. This tie marked the third tie in 49ers-Rams history. The previous two occurred in 1968 and 1954. So, yes, it's been a while.

After the game, most players were asked about how they felt in the locker room following a tie and it was definitely a weird feeling:

Donte Whitner: "It feels weird, never been involved in a tie. We're about wins around here, so we are not going to take any satisfaction in this football game. We're going to take a couple days off, rest up, heal up and get ready for the Chicago Bears."

Tarell Brown: "It just feels like it's unfinished business. At the end of the day I think both teams wanted to go out one more time and just try to see who could win the game. We couldn't today, couldn't get over the top."

Jonathan Goodwin on the mood after the game: "At the end of the day, you always want to win the game and we didn't win the game. That was the goal. At this point we just have to come in and see what went wrong starting the game off and fix it and we've got a tough one coming off next week, so the goal is to move on to next week and figure out why we didn't win this one."

Patrick Willis: "It's the first time I have ever been a part of a tie. I guess the good you can take from it is it's not a loss, but it's not a win. Today, it was a crazy game. Obviously, coming off a bye week we were still a little rusty out there, but give credit to St. Louis. They came out and jumped on us fast 14-0 like in a blink of an eye. We dug ourselves a hole."