A Cowboys analyst has already lit the match for this year’s Texans-Cowboys meeting, and the timing could not be more pointed with Week 4 on the horizon.
In a Monday, July 5 intel piece for The Landry Hat, Levi Dombro made the case that Dallas is ready to reclaim control of Texas football. He wrote, "The Dallas Cowboys are America's Team, so it goes without saying that they run the state of Texas. And while they didn't turn in the best record within the Lone Star State's borders during the 2025 NFL season, the arrow is pointing up for them to reclaim that throne this coming fall."
That kind of talk is exactly the sort of bulletin-board fuel that tends to hang around until kickoff. And with the eighth all-time meeting between the Cowboys and Texans coming up, the matchup already has enough juice on its own.
The most recent chapter went Houston’s way in a big way. When the teams last met in an NFL season back in 2024, the Texans walked into Dallas and left with a 34-10 win. Houston’s defense controlled the game from start to finish, and the Cowboys never found a way to get their offense rolling.
That result fits a broader trend. Since 2023, when C.J.
Stroud and DeMeco Ryans arrived, Houston has had the better run both in this rivalry and overall. Dallas still carries the bigger national footprint and a massive historical edge, including a 5-0 Lombardi advantage, but the Texans have been the sharper team lately.
Dallas will bring plenty of firepower into 2026, with Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens all in place as All-Pro skill-position talent. Houston, meanwhile, enters its 25th anniversary season with what the source describes as the league’s best overall defense and an offense led by a 25-year-old Stroud, who wants to remind people he remains one of the NFL’s best young quarterbacks.
There’s also a personal layer to this one. It will be the first official on-field meeting between Stroud and Prescott, since Prescott’s major injury in 2024 kept him out of the previous matchup in Dallas.
However it plays out, the stage is set for a lively one. And based on the way things have gone lately, the Texans have every reason to believe they can keep the “best team in Texas” label for at least one more year.
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