Cowboys embarrassed in Dalton's debut, as Murray shines

ARLINGTON, Texas — The Dallas Cowboys are in first place in the NFC East.

And so ends the good things you can say about the Dallas Cowboys.

Monday Night Football provided a national stage for the Cowboys to get roundly embarrassed by Allen high school product Kyler Murray and his Arizona Cardinals. This game was never close. It was never entertaining. And it's a harbinger of bad things to come for the Cowboys' 2020 season.

RELATED: Game recap: Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals beat Dallas Cowboys 38-10

Murray made a strong return to AT&T Stadium, improving to 7-0 in this building, as he threw for 188 yards and two touchdowns, and ran for 74 yards and another score. And he hardly appeared to break a sweat doing so.

Dallas's $90 million running back Ezekiel Elliott fumbled the ball on consecutive touches. He now has four lost fumbles this season, five in total. Elliott was apparently briefly pulled in the second quarter in favor of Tony Pollard, after the second fumble.

It was that kind of night for the Cowboys.

Andy Dalton threw the ball 54 times. Dallas scored 10 points.

And how do all the haters feel about Dak Prescott now?

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The Cowboys defense wasn't much better. But they were better. The first three possession of the game for Arizona yielded just 23 total yards and three punts. It was the best start to a game all season for the Cowboys defense.  But it wouldn't last. Arizona's next five possessions read thusly:

TOUCHDOWN

TOUCHDOWN

TOUCHDOWN

Kneel down, end of half

TOUCHDOWN

That's not good. And it only stings the Cowboys worse that the first two of those Cardinals touchdown drives came on short fields after Elliott's two fumbles. Once again, the turnover margin tells the story. 

Dallas was a -4 in the turnover battle on Monday night. They are now -12 through just six games. That is the worst in the NFL by five turnovers. The next worst tally belongs to both Philadelphia and Minnesota, tied for 30th in the league at -7.

Dallas is now 2-4 on the season. They lead the NFC East by a half game, over the 1-4-1 Eagles. The division holds a 5-17-1 combined record. Five wins in six weeks of NFL football.

I don't even know what to do with that.

Oh yeah, and Pro Bowl right guard Zack Martin left in the first quarter, and was evaluated for a concussion. Because not enough can go wrong for this team on the injury front.

25,174 people came to AT&T Stadium on Monday night. Maybe 30 percent of them made it to the final whistle.

I have no clue why.