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The Dallas Cowboys lost their season opener to the New York Giants 20-19 on Sunday. A lot of interesting stuff happened. Rookie quarterback Dak Prescott looked pretty good. Another rookie, Ezekiel Elliott, had no room to run. There was a review of a Dez Bryant catch that once again brought up memories of that Packers game from two years ago. Cole Beasley was seemingly targeted on every other play. The Cowboys got absolutely no pressure on Eli Manning.

And the sun made a special appearance as one of the most important factors of the game, unless it didn't. Jason Garrett didn't want to get into it.

Let's take a look at a late-game pass to Jason Witten to see just how bad the sun was:

And the video:


Yeah, it's not all that surprising that the sure-handed Witten, who didn't drop a single pass last season, couldn't find a way to hang onto that one.

"Yeah, it was,'' Witten said when asked if the sun was a factor in the fourth quarter, per the Dallas Morning News. "It was. But you still should make the plays. There's no question about that. The sun kind of got on us a little bit, but we still need to make those plays. I need to make them.''

Prescott, who was also asked about the sun after the game, said he hadn't had a chance to talk to his receivers yet to see if or how it affected them, per the same Morning News story.

Jerry Jones, whose AT&T Stadium (colloquially known as Jerry World) is one of the NFL's most extravagant stadiums, had this to say: "That's certainly, looking back in that sun, but to some degree they've got it too when they come in there. Those were bright spots. Actually I thought the sun, while it may have impacted those two throws, I thought the sun was pretty good out there really relative to coming in from the east there."

As usual, it's difficult to tell exactly what Jerry means there. But it doesn't matter. You know what matters? Jokes.

On a more serious note, apparently the Cowboys have the capability to block the sun:

Why they didn't do that, who knows. Either way, it may not have mattered if Terrance Williams had just round out of bounds.

Although now that I think about it, maybe he just couldn't see the sideline because of the sun.