ARLINGTON, Tex. — To watch a game with all its pregame and postgame trimmings in Texas, in Jerry Jones’s Temple of Excess known as AT&T Stadium, is to highlight what is deeply entertaining and not so modestly depraved about the N.F.L. game.

The Cowboys-Giants match, or what you could see of it beneath the blinking electronic scoreboard that hovers over the field like the Starship Enterprise, featured a glorious quarterback duel. The Cowboys’ Tony Romo and the Giants’ Eli Manning, who have battled each other since what feels like 1963, were throwing off their back feet, across their bodies, improvising jagged scrambles, muscling tosses into triple coverage.

In the end, Romo and the Cowboys prevailed, 31-21. But it was difficult to draw a conclusion more lasting than that Romo’s cupboard was more fully stocked with talent, with healthy receivers, a resilient and smart defense, and a transcendent running back, DeMarco Murray.

Time and again, Murray hurled himself against the Giants’ defensive line, a vast and collective mass of flesh and sinew and muscle. The Giants would stuff him once, and stuff him again, and hurl him to the turf for good measure.