Romo wrecks celebration (cont.)

Jerry Jones was unable to celebrate a Cowboys victory on the night of his team's first regular-season home game. AP

• Leave it the Cowboys to throw a party this grand, invite more than 105,000 people, and then blow so much of the potential goodwill it created by losing the game (see last season's Texas Stadium finale, against Baltimore).

I watched as an ashen-looking Jones wordlessly left the Cowboys locker room, head down and striding away with purpose as fast as his legs would carry him. This one had to hurt the Cowboys owner. He had a little sweat equity invested in having this day turn out right for his team.

"I am disappointed for Jerry, because I wanted to win this one for him," Dallas head coach Wade Phillips finally said, after numerous questions along those lines did some prodding. "I think our team overall wanted to because he is such a great honor and he put this up for us, the Dallas Cowboys. So I do feel bad about that."

Romo, too, did his part to publicly bleed for Jones.

"You can't help but play for this organization and love Jerry," Romo said. "He's been nothing but great to all of us that are players and we're lucky to have him as an owner. We definitely wanted to win this one. It was extra motivation, and I'm very disappointed now that he's not going to be able to have that one."

• Here's an astounding statistic that had plenty to do with the Cowboys' loss to the Giants: After two games, Dallas still has no sacks. That's pretty remarkable for a team that led the NFL in sacks last season with 59.

Without pressure, Eli Manning burned Dallas for 330 yards passing and a pair of touchdowns, on 25 completions in 38 attempts. Manning had a 110.6 passer rating, and found eight Giants receivers.

"They kept the tight end in most of the time, and the [running] back," Phillips said. "We pressed them some, but they are a good solid team. They are not going to get sacked all the time. But the chances we had to get him, he seemed to get away."

• Weird, weird scene at the end of Phillips postgame news conference. An unidentified individual who happened to be wearing some sort of counterfeit credential -- definitely not a media credential -- ended Phillips' Q&A by asking the Cowboys coach if he "missed Jessica Simpson this year?''

Phillips grunted and left the platform, and a Cowboys veteran public relations official quickly ushered the bogus reporter out of the room.

• Somebody tried to give Romo an out of sorts in the postgame news conference, asking him if the Cowboys new stadium is "too interactive," meaning too distracting?

"No, the stadium was great," Romo said. "The fans were fantastic tonight. I suspect we're going to have an incredible homefield advantage throughout the rest of the season in this place. I think it's going to allow us to be a really good team at home. Tonight, I just cost us. I have to get better at the mistakes I made, and I will."

• My favorite moment in the pregame ceremony, and I kid you not, was when the big video screens showed shots of the Roman Coliseum, the Parthenon, the Pyramids, Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, then lastly, a picture of the gleaming new Cowboys Stadium, finally ready for its close-up.

I'm hoping that was Jones's tongue-in-cheek way of saluting his masterpiece. But you can never tell with Jerry's ego.

• For the record, you really do often end up watching those 60-yard long video boards rather than the field. Maybe because the press box in the stadium is a long, long ways away from the field level.

But just for the record, I didn't see a single one of the game's nine punts come anywhere close to hitting one of the video boards. Score one for Jones and his big screens, suspended 90 feet over the playing field.

• As omens go, the last time the Cowboys opened a new stadium, in 1971, they won the Super Bowl. Don't be betting the mortgage on that streak continuing.

• With the Giants spoiling his big night, wouldn't it be just like Jones to petition the NFL to be the Giants' home-opening opponent next season when New York opens its own new $1-billion-plus stadium? Paybacks can be hell, and Jones would love to get his revenge next September in New Jersey.