No, not the fact that overtime can end in a tie.

The media audience Reid was addressing at noon in the Nova-Care auditorium already knew that.

Reid wanted everyone to know that though he had seemed to say Sunday he was tempted to go for it on fourth-and-1 from his 22, with a minute and 30 seconds left in overtime, this was not the case. Reid was not tempted, when the downside would have been giving the Bengals a chip-shot field goal to win.

Reid said that when the Daily News ' Paul Domowitch asked him if he'd been tempted to go for it on fourth-and-1, he'd assumed Domowitch was talking about the fourth-and-1 at the Cincinnati 9, with 5:22 left in regulation, when Reid called timeout before sending David Akers on to kick the game-tying, 27-yard field goal. That one, he was tempted to go for. Not the one in OT.

"I would state now that I absolutely feel that was the correct thing to do in punting the Football with [1:30] left on your minus-22 yard line," Reid said. "It's pretty safe to say that that's the correct decision, to punt the Football."

The opposing view would be that you're giving up your last reasonable chance of winning - the Birds subsequently got the ball back with 7 seconds left, with only enough time left to try a "Hail Mary." And of course, punting from that deep in your own territory doesn't ensure you won't lose on an ensuing field goal; the Eagles ultimately needed Shayne Graham to miss a 47-yarder with 13 seconds left.

But Reid probably is on solid ground if the argument is that a tie is slightly better for playoff purposes than a loss would have been. And even if you pick up the first down at your 23, the clock ticking down inside a minute and a half, you're hardly perched on the doorstep of winning.

When a questioner asserted yesterday that a tie was just as bad as a loss, Reid said: "I don't see it like that. I see there is a half-game right there. Plus, that's ridiculous. You're giving them an opportunity at the minus-22, that doesn't make sense. I don't think that should make sense to anybody."

The downside of going for it on the earlier one, where Reid actually was tempted, is also obvious - you're losing the game at that point. If you go for it and are denied, there is no tie and no overtime. You couldn't have known then that you wouldn't come close to scoring in overtime.

Third-and-doneHas any team's season ever gone down the tubes pretty much exclusively because it can't convert third-and-1? That really is what we're looking at here. Andy Reid was asked yesterday if throwing three times on third-and-1 in Cincinnati (and misfiring all three times) sent a message to his linemen and running backs that he lacked confidence in them.

"I surely didn't expect two tips and a drop," Reid said, referring to the results of the three throws. "I didn't expect that. I expect to convert, and I wasn't trying to really send a message to anybody. I was trying to get the first down. I expect those balls to be completed and caught and move on."

Before Sunday, the Eagles were 3-for-3 when throwing on third- or fourth-and-1, 5-for-14 running in those situations. They converted a fourth-and-1 against the Bengals on a quarterback sneak that gained 2 yards.

BirdseedWhen prompted, Andy Reid said he would take the responsibility for Donovan McNabb not knowing overtime could end in a tie . . . Reid seemed to understand that after 4 successive weeks of being asked about slow starts, there was little he could say, beyond reinforcing that McNabb will remain the Eagles' starting quarterback. "I've sat up here before, so anything I tell you, until I get it done, isn't really going to matter," Reid said. Later he added that "we'll get through it, we'll work through it" . . . On NBC's "Football Night in America" Sunday night, Sports Illustrated 's Peter King said: "I believe Andy Reid, if this team fails down the stretch, will give a shot to Kevin Kolb to see if he can be their quarterback of the future." Fellow panelist Cris Collinsworth replied: "You want to bench Donovan McNabb. Stupid, just stupid" . . . Ravens coach (and former Eagles assistant) John Harbaugh didn't sound optimistic yesterday about left tackle Jared Gaither being ready to play the Eagles after injuring his right shoulder in Baltimore's loss to the Giants. "We think it's going to be touch-and-go," Harbaugh said. *

For more Eagles coverage and opinion, read the Daily News' Eagles blog, Eagletarian, at www.eagletarian.com