ARLINGTON, Texas — The world had to wait until Week 3 to see what Josh Rosen could do for the Miami Dolphins, after the team traded a 2019 second-round pick and 2020 fifth-rounder to the Arizona Cardinals in April to acquire him. First-year head coach Brian Flores instead decided to start veteran Ryan Fitzpatrick to begin the season -- also added to the team this offseason -- to disastrous results.

In two starts, Fitzpatrick mustered only 274 passing yards total with just one touchdown to to four interceptions, and was accurate on just 50% of his throws. Needless to say, the Dolphins went 0-2 with him as the starter and it fueled allegations that Flores and the Dolphins were tanking the season -- a narrative stoked further by the decision to trade away Minkah Fitzpatrick ahead of the team's Week 3 battle with the Dallas Cowboys. After initially naming the veteran QB starter against Dallas, Flores did an about-face and gave Rosen the nod instead, signifying he's not looking to go 0-16.

Although the Cowboys ended up gutting the Dolphins on Sunday, Rosen gave them all they could handle in the first half before Dak Prescott stopped "being greedy" and Robert Quinn helped lead the defense to a strong second half against his former team.

The 22-year-old showed great poise under pressure and gave the Cowboys pass rush hell initially with his mobility and big arm, but ultimately it was the inability to halt Dallas' red-hot offense in the second half that became Miami's undoing. A monumental upset was within reach with the Cowboys being up only 10-6 at the half -- in part thanks to Rosen -- but the final of 31-6 tells you just how on fire Prescott and Co. were in the third and fourth quarter. 

"[Rosen's] got some pocket presence about him," Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said about the second-year quarterback following the game. "I'll tell you that."

To Jones' point, Rosen wasn't sacked a single time in the first half.

His stat line against Dallas can be misleading, and mostly because it doesn't account for drops like the one seen by wide receiver Preston Williams late in the second quarter. With 5:57 remaining before halftime and operating on the Cowboys 15-yard line, Rosen tossed a beautiful pass down the right sideline to Williams -- who initially reeled it in before it was jarred loose by cornerback Chidobe Awuzie. That would-be touchdown would've set the Dolphins up to tie the game at 10-10 at the half, but they were instead forced to settle for a field goal.

Flores opted to not challenge the call. 

It also bears mentioning Jason Sanders missed a 47-yard field goal attempt in the first quarter which, theoretically speaking, gave the Dolphins a chance at actually entering having with a 13-10 lead as opposed to a 10-6 deficit.

Williams' woes continued all game, grabbing only four of his 12 targets, and DeVante Parker and Kenyon Drake didn't fare much better -- combining for six receptions on 12 targets themselves. All told, that's 67% of Rosen's incompletions on the day from those three players alone. He'd finish with 200 yards with no interceptions, but also had no touchdowns on 18 for 39 passing; leaving you to wonder just how good his debut could've been had the wide receiver corps not struggled so mightily.

On what turned out to be a forgettable day for the Dolphins in Arlington, Rosen has instantly become a lighthouse going forward.

"I thought Josh made some good throws early," Flores said. "He started off with the long ball to DeVante. That's a good defense, but I thought he was tough. He took a couple of hits but stood in the pocket. He gave us some opportunities on some throws."

Flores then echoed the point about Rosen's day having been torpedoed by his own wideouts.

"The drops didn't help him," said the Dolphins head coach. "That would have helped us as a team. We just didn't get it done but, overall, I thought he played alright."

Rosen left the game briefly for concussion review after taking a hit in lieu of sliding on a run, but returned quickly without incident.

"He's got to slide on some of these runs," Flores made clear. "He's got to do a better job of that. We've got to coach that better."

For his part, Rosen is split on how things went Sunday.

Rosen said he feels good physically. "...It's to be determined [regarding how I feel emotionally], though," he said. "I feel like we are making a little progress as a team, but we had a lot of mistakes that were very well within our control. So, like every week, it's back to the film on Monday to get it fixed. 

"...It felt really good [in the first half]," Rosen said. "I thought we had the defense on their heels. They have a really good pass rush. They started to emerge later in the game and I thought that we pretty much, for the most part, did a really good job of holding it back early in the game. 

"I thought we had a really good game plan coming into it. It's just about finishing the drives. I thought we put a couple of good [drives] together, but we've just got to cap it off. [We also stalled] inside the five, twice. That's never a good thing."

Rosen, however, was indeed a "good thing," and on a day when not many others in a Dolphins uniform could make that claim.