PITTSBURGH -- For centuries the world's deepest thinkers have swatted the question back and forth, never able to arrive at an answer satisfactory to the masses, leaving the ultimate conundrum for the ages.

It should not have been surprising, then, that the debate about whether the glass is half-empty or half-full wasn't about to be settled in the NFL's first tie game since Nov. 23, 1997. A visit to the Atlanta Falcons locker room after the 34-34 standoff Sunday afternoon reinforced the notion that the visitors felt they departed Heinz Field with momentum intact.

Anyone who dared survey the Steelers dressing quarters after a contest in which coach Bill Cowher's team squandered a 17-point advantage over the final eight minutes, however, understood readily that Pittsburgh players were viewing their meltdown as a defeat.

	Plaxico Burress' 253 yards were not enough for a Pittsburgh victory.

"Oh, it's definitely a loss," said Steelers weakside linebacker Joey Porter, who bolstered his candidacy for defensive most valuable player honors with yet another standout performance. "I've been playing football for about 12 or 13 years now, and I've never been in a tie, so I don't know how it feels. But I know how a win feels. I know how a loss feels. And this feels like a loss, no doubt about it, man."

Only a few hundred feet of concrete and steel and ductwork separate the two locker rooms, but the disparate emotions of the clubs was light-years apart, and justifiably so. The upstart Falcons, with star quarterback Michael Vick being pummeled by an aggressive and confusing Pittsburgh pass rush, needed just a few more spades full of dirt to have their four-game winning streak shoveled under.

But Atlanta emerged from the dirt when Steelers rookie Antwaan Randle El fumbled a punt with 10:18 to play in regulation. At the time, not even the Steelers players thought much about the miscue, but that was before they could look back an hour later and see it as an ominous turning point.

The Falcons scurried together two touchdowns and a field goal during the last eight minutes, then both teams botched scoring opportunities in overtime to put both clubs at 5-3-1.

There is a hockey adage that there are good ties and bad ties. From the moment Cowher entered the post-game interview area, it was obvious that he viewed Sunday's proceedings as the latter, even if he wouldn't admit it.

Just minutes before meeting with the media, Cowher had tried to buoy the disconsolate Steelers by telling them to quit regarding the collapse as a loss, but he was no more convincing when addressing reporters than he was in the effort to assuage his crestfallen players.

While the Steelers coach repeated several times that he didn't know how he was supposed to feel after the first tie of his long football career, his body language and hangdog facial expressions suggested otherwise, and Cowher almost tried to sell too hard the idea that the tie was only a lesser evil.

"I know we didn't lose," said Cowher, who seemed at a loss for words to describe the wild game. "We didn't lose."

Those words, however, run hollow. And with good reason: The Steelers rung up an incredible 645 yards and 30 first downs. Tommy Maddox set a franchise record by throwing for 473 yards. Wide receiver Plaxico Burress caught nine passes for a club-record 253 yards and two touchdowns, and his 50-yard catch on the final play of the game came up perhaps six inches shy of turning into an answered prayer. Fellow wide receiver Hines Ward had 11 catches for 139 yards and tailback Amos Zereoue ran for 123 yards.

Post those kind of gaudy numbers, and contain Vick for three quarters, and you should come away with more than a half-game to show for the effort. It marked the first time in franchise history that Pittsburgh had a player throw for 400 yards, one catch passes for 200 yards and another rush for 100 yards in the same contest.

The tie was the first for the Steelers since 1974 and the first for the Falcons since 1986.

That the Steelers didn't close out the game was due to the continuing kicking woes of placement specialist Todd Peterson, whose job is likely in serious jeopardy now, and some dubious game and clock management by Cowher and a coaching staff that became ultra-conservative on both sides of the ball.

Peterson, who has been viewed with jaundice by Cowher for a few weeks, had an extra point blocked, clanged a 40-yard field goal try off of the right upright and had a 48-yard field goal blocked in overtime. Deadpanned the irritated Cowher: "I think he's had better days."

	“	This was a game we should have won. Why we didn't ... well, I don't even want to get into it, OK? All this talk about, 'Wow, what an exciting game,' and 'Oh, this should be one of those instant classics,' forget that stuff. ”
		— Steelers LB James Farrior

Then again, so has Cowher -- who was 71-1 before Sunday in games where his team led by 10 points or more -- but who pulled in the reins far too early against a Falcons team that was simply looking for one more reason to fold its tents and go home.

In fashioning the 34-17 lead, the Steelers threw the ball nearly at will versus a suspect Atlanta secondary. While the Steelers didn't blitz Vick very often, they made their few "dogs" count, hit him often, sacked him four times and forced him into two intentional grounding penalties on one drive with pressure up the middle.

But after the Falcons scored on a one-yard run by fullback Bob Christian to cut the deficit to 34-24, Pittsburgh became painfully predictable on offense. On the next two series, the Steelers ran Zereoue on first and second down both times, and Maddox couldn't convert on third down. In the overtime, the Steelers had a second-and-one at the Atlanta 29-yard line. Rather than send Zereoue off-tackle, where he was finding some creases, the Steelers called a slow-developing toss-sweep on second down (result: no gain), and then on third down Zereoue was stuffed for a one-yard loss.

Said one Steelers lineman: "In that situation, if we just (run) the ball straight at them, we get the first down, and new set (of downs) and we're in pretty good shape to go in and score."

Defensively, the Steelers seemed to play more zone coverages after jumping out to the 17-point advantage, and Vick began to make plays. Over the final 10 minutes, it was obvious the Steelers defense was weary from chasing the mercurial Vick, but the unit was also tired of the passive approach used in trying to corral the Falcons scintillating young star.

"When we came at him, we made plays, and we hit him a lot," said Porter, who had eight tackles, one sack, two passes defensed, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. "When we sat back, he took over, and it was like they kind of came to life. You can't be afraid of a playmaker. You attack him."

But there were circumstances where Cowher clearly feared the elusive Vick, none more notable than in overtime, when he failed to call a time out with 48 seconds remaining and Atlanta facing a fourth-and-three at the Steelers' 37-yard line. Instead of "icing" Falcons kicker Jay Feeley, or forcing the Falcons to make a decision about whether to attempt a field goal or try to make the necessary yardage, he allowed Atlanta to run down the clock to eight seconds.

Feeley's 56-yard attempt was blocked but the fact so much time elapsed before the try was more than incidental.

Cowher's explanation: "I didn't want to give them time to think about going for (the first down). The way that guy (Vick) was running around ... well, that was about it."

The coach was testy about the immediate second-guessing in the aftermath of the tie, but his players were far from satisfied by some rationalizations he made, and Cowher's characterization that his club "squandered opportunity" was met with glazed and blank looks.

"People can say what they want," said linebacker James Farrior. "But this was a game we should have won. Why we didn't ... well, I don't even want to get into it, OK? All this talk about, 'Wow, what an exciting game,' and 'Oh, this should be one of those instant classics,' forget that stuff."

Down the hall, the Falcons weren't ready to forget one of the most stirring rallies in the mostly miserable history of a revived franchise. All but left for dead in the fourth quarter, a young and improving team that is beginning to believe in itself kept fighting, and salvaged more than a little pride.

"If a tie game can be a step forward, this one was, for sure," said cornerback Ray Buchanan, a frequent Maddox target. "It's another building block. The way I see it, anything that isn't a step backward is pretty good, and this was not a step in the wrong direction. We played a team most people felt coming into the season was a Super Bowl contender. In five quarters, we scored as many points as they did, right.

"There's got to be something good about that. Yeah, on a day like this, the glass is definitely half-full."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.