ARLINGTON, Texas — This wasn’t the start of his own Era, not now, not yet.

Still, while TV was in the two-minute warning timeout, Daniel Jones flipped off his hat, ran to the Giants bench, grabbed his helmet and buckled in. He trotted onto the field after the Cowboys had punted the ball away, with 1:46 left in the game, with Dallas unassailably ahead 35-17.

He was getting his reps. They were garbage-time reps, and Jones was only one of a gaggle of scrubs playing out the string this day. But for Jones, they were perfectly glorious.

You only get one crack at making your professional debut.

“It was exciting to run out there,” Jones said. “It was good to get my feet wet.”

And he figured: If he was playing anyway, he might as well try to play well. His first toss was a 5-yard out to Wayne Gallman, who dashed out of bounds. Next came a 6-yard toss to Evan Engram, who also dashed out of bounds, at the midfield stripe. So far, so good.

His next throw was for 6 more yards, to Gallman again, and Gallman went out of bounds with 1:31 left on the clock; he was 3-for-3. His next pass was also his first incompletion, a little deeper down the field, looking for Rhett Ellison.

Then: the mistake. Flushed from the pocket, he spotted the first-down marker and instead of ducking out of bounds, he stayed in the field of play. Leighton Vander Esch tackled him. On review, it showed he jarred the ball loose. Chidobe Awuzie recovered.

“You can tell he’s a competitive guy,” Giants coach Pat Shurmur said. “He’ll learn to get out of bounds.”

Said Jones: “I didn’t do a good job protecting the ball. I’ve got to make sure I keep it secure.”

Still, getting his first taste of real action looked good on Jones, who had a superb preseason and seemed to calm a lot of fears that the Giants had erred by taking him with the sixth pick in the draft.

“Just it being a regular-season game, it had a different speed to it,” Jones said. “The game’s a little different, but it’s still exciting. During the game I was trying to stay engaged, find a way to help, making sure I know what’s going on on understanding what Eli’s doing.”

For a guy used to starting in college, that was a little different, but he enjoyed all of it.

“I think my role is different now than it was before,” he said. “But I still have ways to impact the game. I’m just trying to do best I can that way.”