Bengals tight end Marco Battaglia ate lunch three times a week during the offseason at the World Trade Center. After he worked out, the Queens, N.Y., native would meet up with high school friends who worked there and at neighboring buildings.

        One of Battaglia's friends, a construction worker who was on the 105th or 106th floor of the building hit first Tuesday by terrorists, is still missing. The friend, whom Battaglia chose not to name, had called a mutual friend from the building after the blast and said there was no escape.

        “It has me freaked out,” he said after Wednesday's practice.

        Throughout the league Wednesday, as commissioner Paul Tagliabue ponders whether to cancel Sunday's games, players, coaches and team officials — like all Americans — struggled to cope with the attack.

        In the Bengals clubhouse, Battaglia and linebacker Canute Curtis, a Long Island native, are the players most directly affected by the destruction of Manhattan's twin towers. Defensive coordinator Mark Duffner's brother-in-law, Dave Frost, is a Navy captain who works in the Pentagon but not on the side hit by a hijacked airliner.

        Battaglia was enjoying Tuesday's day off at his Cincinnati apartment with wife Maria and 7-month-old daughter Ava when he learned of the attack. He watched TV for 15-16 hours and could hardly eat. He and his wife learned later that two of her mom's friends were on the 51st story of the second building but got out.

        Battaglia and Curtis grew up with and played football with several friends who became police officers and firefighters.

        “I'm pretty sure I lost a couple of friends there, but I didn't lose family,” Curtis said. “People have to go on with their lives, but I don't know if we have to go on with our lives quite so soon.”

        The Bengals are supposed to play Sunday at Nashville, against Tennessee. The team will bus five hours if air travel is not possible. Some players expressed reservations about flying Saturday.

        With air traffic grounded since late Tuesday morning, at least two Bengals had to drive to Cincinnati for Wednesday's practice. Defensive end Reinard Wilson drove with his father from Jacksonville, Fla., and offensive tackle Willie Anderson drove from Atlanta. Cornerback Mark Roman was stuck in Louisiana.

        Most Bengals who discussed the attack said they would play if the league says to, but some have concerns. Gene Upshaw, the players' union executive director, said he hadn't talked to a player who wanted to play Sunday.

        “Safety should be the biggest concern,” Curtis said. “If the league says we play, do the fans want to come out where there are 70,000 people sitting around and be a big target?”

        Tagliabue's predecessor, Pete Rozelle, often said he regretted most his decision to play two days after President Kennedy was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963. Bengals coach Dick LeBeau, then a cornerback with the Detroit Lions, played at Minnesota that day.

        “We played with a heavy heart, but we played,” LeBeau said. “We believed that, as Americans, we would do whatever our boss told us to do. I would hope that's what everybody here feels.”

        Bengals president Mike Brown — who was out of the league in 1963, because the Cleveland Browns had fired his father, Paul Brown, as head coach — said playing then was the right call.

        “Looking backwards, it is generally held these days that it was a mistake for the NFL to go forward (in '63),” he said. “I don't view it that way. Life goes on. And it doesn't do any good to shut down things. You show (terrorists) more by just keeping at it.”

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