FRISCO, Texas -- The Dallas Cowboys will begin their 10th season inside AT&T Stadium -- the $1.2 billion gold standard -- on Sunday when they take on the New York Giants.

Before the Cowboys christened the place during their regular-season opener against the Giants on Sept. 20, 2009, owner and general manager Jerry Jones said he hoped the quality of the joint, complete with the retractable roof, the center-hung digital board, the field-level suites and the slick club areas would raise the level of play from the team.

Nine years in? Not so much.

The Cowboys are 37-35 at AT&T Stadium. In the past five seasons, the Cowboys are 20-20 at home, good for 20th in the NFL.

Jason Garrett likes to say it doesn’t matter if a game is home, away, in a parking lot or on the moon -- execution matters. Considering the lack of home success, maybe he might see if Jones can schedule a game on the moon. Or a parking lot.

It leads to a simple question: Does winning lead to a home-field advantage or does a home-field advantage lead to winning?

The Cowboys have had a winning record at home over just four seasons in AT&T Stadium’s history. They went 6-2 in 2009 and won a playoff game at home. In 2011 and 2013, the Cowboys went 5-3 at home and finished 8-8 both times. In 2016, the Cowboys went 7-1 at home but lost in the divisional round of the playoffs to the Green Bay Packers despite home-field advantage.

“The home-field thing, I’m not quite so sure,” Tyrone Crawford said. “Everywhere I’ve ever played, I’ve always had a lot of pride in our home field. My high school. Junior college. My university. We’ve always had a lot of pride in playing on our home turf. That’s the kind of culture we want to bring here. I feel like we’ve talked about that already. And it doesn’t matter, home or away, we need to come with the same intensity. But definitely when we’re home, we know this is our spot, and we can’t let people come in here and get dubs.”

Making the home-record debate even crazier is that the Cowboys are 26-15 on the road since 2013. In 2014, the Cowboys were undefeated on the road but went 4-4 at home on their way to a 12-4 finish.

“I can’t,” Zack Martin said when asked if there’s a reason for the discrepancy. “We’ve talked about it. Historically since I’ve been here, we’ve been better on the road, and we’ve tried to emulate a bunch of stuff to make it feel like we’re on the road. We come to the hotel early. We do all the meetings like we’re on the road. I can’t really put my finger on it because it should be a huge advantage to play at home, but we just haven’t had that success.”

The road has been friendlier, in part, because the Cowboys’ fans travel so well. Home has been less friendly because many times the opposing team will have a large faction of fans. There have been times when the Cowboys' offense has had to go to a silent snap count because of the crowd noise.

That’s not supposed to happen.

AT&T Stadium is such a destination spot. Opposing fans want to see what all of the fuss is about. Some Cowboys’ season-ticket holders paying high prices see a way to make some money back by putting their tickets on the resale market.

The lack of a home crowd has frustrated many staffers and players over the years.

But Ezekiel Elliott was asked what the best part of playing at AT&T Stadium was, and he said, “Just getting in front of those fans. It’s a beautiful stadium, but we get to get in front of more of our fans, because our fans always do a great job with traveling. We get in front of all of them in Dallas, and just that energy is different. I think there’s nothing like it.”

The aesthetics of AT&T Stadium are unmatched. On night games, like Sunday’s against the Giants, Jones loves for the roof to be open, weather permitting, for the overhead shots from network television. Inside, fans can seem more interested in seeing themselves on the digital board than making the right amount of noise at the right time.

“I think when our division [opponents] come to our stadium, it feels more like we have an advantage, if that makes sense,” Martin said.

It should make sense, but since 2009, the Cowboys are 14-13 at home against the Giants, Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Redskins.

Season No. 10 kicks off Sunday. Maybe this will be the year AT&T Stadium becomes a difficult place to play.