ARLINGTON, Texas — There were long stretches Friday night in which Cowboys-Titans looked like any other preseason game you might stumble across.

Drives that failed to produce points . . . penalties that had coach Wade Phillips scratching his head . . . even rows of empty seats scattered throughout.
And then there was that public address system with the echoes reverberating all over the walls so loudly that fans needed a decoder to interpret the most basic messages.
On the other hand, Friday’s football game played before a crowd of 75,720 (at least that was the tickets distributed count) was notable for two big reasons.
It was the debut of Cowboys Stadium featuring the scoreboard to beat all scoreboards.
And it was the return of Felix Jones.
After a dismal showing all around in Oakland last weekend, the Cowboys outplayed and outscored the Tennessee Titans, 30-10. I don’t expect many who attended to remember the final score for more than a day or two.
They will remember visiting a stadium that, despite some notable and fixable bugs, has a chance to be a special palace for the Dallas Cowboys. They will remember a crowd that seemed transfixed by the $40 million scoreboard that takes your attention away from what’s happening down below.
Back in 1986, I went to the NFL’s first American Bowl game in London’s Wembley Stadium in which the Cowboys lost a lackluster game to the world champion Bears. England’s soccer fans showed interest mostly when either team would boom a punt down the field.
Friday night there were plenty of “oohs” when punters for either team came close to clipping the midfield scoreboard. The starters missed, but Titans backup A.J. Trapasso hit it in the third-quarter.
It was the first official “do-over” in the new stadium.
And Cowboys fans will remember how good it was to see Jones displaying the moves that made him a first-round pick out of Arkansas in 2008 and had him in position to be a featured back last year before ankle and hamstring injuries ended his season in October.
In his home preseason debut of 2009, Jones ran five times for 17 yards but had the big play of the opening half, a 42-yard catch on a pass from Tony Romo. No other Cowboy or Titan gained 20 yards on a play in the first two quarters when most of the defensive starters for both teams remained on the field.
As good as Romo was in his half (18-for-24, 192 yards), he needed Marion Barber to score the team’s first touchdown on a 1-yard run. Then Jones produced the final touchdown of the half just one second before the second quarter ended.
Jones’ long catch-and-run, one in which he picked up an extra 30 yards by freezing safety Tuff Harris with a juke to the outside, set up his 1-yard scoring run that gave Dallas a 14-10 halftime lead.
There has been much talk during training camp about the Cowboys’ need to be more balanced with an efficient running attack in 2009. In his camp-opening news conference, Phillips all but said he was embarrassed by the team’s 21st rank in rushing yards and that Dallas needed to climb back into the top 10 this season.
What the Cowboys really need is to see what Jones can produce if healthy for a full season. That often wasn’t the case at Arkansas, where he backed up Raiders back Darren McFadden, and it certainly wasn’t the case in Dallas last fall.
If fans left Cowboys Stadium talking about anything other than the 60-yard big screen, it was the highlight that Jones splashed across that big board in the final minute of the first half.
“That’s why we have Felix Jones,” Cowboys wide receiver Roy Williams said. “He’s a guy to make it happen.”
The fans that frequent preseason games don’t necessarily come with high expectations that a whole lot will happen. And on this night, they mostly wanted to see what the fuss — and the $1.1 billion of taxpayers’ and Jerry Jones’ money — was all about.
Other than having to hunt for down and distance scoreboards (those should be much bigger) and wondering what happened to the midfield star and the Ring of Honor (look for those to debut in the regular season), fans probably got what they hoped for.
And Felix Jones provided reason to hope that 2009 will be notable for something more than a move to Tarrant County.