Rules Question

Near the end of the first half, with the Saints out of timeouts, Drew Brees avoided a sack by shoveling the ball forward to his left guard, Jamar Nesbit.  The refs called the obligatory illegal touching penalty, since Nesbit wasn't an eligible receiver, but that's just a five-yard hit.  More importantly, the penalty stopped the clock.  Had Brees been sacked, there may not have been time to run another play.

Now if this is the correct call, that's a really smart play by Brees.  If he just chucks it away, it's intentional grounding.  If he takes the sack, the half is over. 

But that call doesn't seem like it should be right.  Otherwise, quarterbacks in danger of getting sacked should just fire the ball at the nearest offensive lineman.  Shawn Andrews is always angling to play tight end anyway.

I consulted my copy of the NFL rulebook -- yes, I have a copy of the NFL rulebook, but in fairness it's a couple years old -- and what I found is a little ambiguous.  There is nothing in the rule on intentional grounding (Rule 8-3-1) that mentions an eligible receiver:

"Intentional grounding will be called when a passer, facing an imminent loss of yardage because of pressure from the defense, throws a forward pass without a realistic chance of completion."

But the rule that covers illegal touching (8-1-5) contains a reference that says:

"Note 1: See 8-3-1 for intentional grounding."

The problem is that the rulebook available to the public isn't the real rulebook.  The league's bible has a lot more information on various situations that can come up and might have more information about this particular situation.

Anyone have any light they can shed here?  And note as well that this situation has nothing to do with the illegal touching offseason rule change because it wasn't an accidental touch.