No Time to Feel Sorry for Themselves

After Rio, the Cowboys don't need a reset. They need a response.

The Houston Texans had never won an NFL game.

They had never lost one, either.

On September 8, 2002, the NFL's newest franchise walked onto the field at Reliant Stadium for its first regular-season game, and waiting across from them was the Dallas Cowboys.

The matchup looked almost unfair on paper.

Dallas carried five Lombardi Trophies in its history and still had pieces of its 1990s dynasty on the roster. Emmitt Smith was there. Larry Allen was there.

But Troy Aikman was gone. Michael Irvin was gone. The dynasty itself was gone.

What remained was a Cowboys team still trying to figure out what came next.

Houston didn't care about any of that.

Seventy-four seconds into the Texans' existence as a regular-season football team, David Carr found Billy Miller for the first touchdown in franchise history.

By the end of the night, Houston had beaten Dallas 19–10.

The Texans had their first victory.

And the Cowboys had provided it.

Twenty-four years later, Dallas heads back to Houston facing a very different Texans team and carrying a very different set of problems.

But there is something about that first meeting worth remembering.

History doesn't win football games.

Neither does reputation.

And neither does feeling like you're better than your record says you are.

Cowboys vs. Texans: Different Teams, Same Texas

Cowboys vs. Texans has never developed the kind of rivalry that defines the NFC East.

They don't play often enough for that.

But pretending there isn't something different about Cowboys-Texans games ignores where these teams come from.

There is only so much football territory available in Texas.

Dallas had occupied most of it for decades before the Texans ever existed.

So when Houston finally returned to the NFL, its first regular-season opponent couldn't have been more appropriate.

The Cowboys.

And Houston won.

That 2002 victory became part of the Texans' origin story because it wasn't simply the first win in franchise history. It came against the team that had long dominated the state's NFL identity.

The names have changed. The stadium has changed. The stakes have changed.

The geography hasn't.

And neither has the satisfaction that comes with beating the other Texas team.

Don't Let the Record Tell the Story

Houston enters Sunday at 0–3.

That makes the Texans dangerous in a very specific way.

They're desperate.

Dallas should understand the feeling.

The Cowboys are 1–2 after leaving Rio with a 34–31 loss to Baltimore, and the frustrating part is that the game provided plenty of evidence that Dallas may actually be improving.

The offense moved the football.

Young defensive players continued to grow.

The Cowboys created opportunities to win.

And then they gave enough of those opportunities back to lose.

That's what makes Houston important.

Dallas doesn't need another encouraging performance.

It needs a win.

At some point, progress has to stop appearing only in individual plays, improved statistics and promising stretches of football.

It has to appear on the scoreboard.

The Cowboys Are Banged Up

The trip to Rio didn't help an already stressed Dallas defense.

The Cowboys entered the week monitoring injuries throughout the secondary and linebacker group, with Cobie Durant, DeMarvion Overshown and Shavon Revel among those unable to practice Wednesday and Malik Hooker working his way back on a limited basis.

Houston has injury concerns of its own.

That's life four weeks into an NFL season.

Nobody arrives completely healthy.

The question isn't whether Dallas would prefer to have everyone available.

Of course it would.

The question is whether the players who are available can keep the Cowboys from repeating the mistakes that have already cost them games.

Because the schedule isn't going to wait for Dallas to get healthy.

And apparently, neither is the front office.

An Answer Is Coming

The Cowboys didn't respond to their secondary problems by looking for another depth piece.

They traded for Joey Porter Jr.

Dallas sent meaningful future draft capital to Pittsburgh for a 26-year-old cornerback with 41 career starts and the physical profile to become an important piece in Christian Parker's defense.

We already examined the trade itself separately, because it deserves more than a paragraph buried inside a game preview.

But it matters here for another reason.

The move tells us what Dallas thinks about this season.

The Cowboys aren't acting like a 1–2 team preparing for some distant future.

They're trying to fix this one.

Whether Porter can become part of that answer—and how quickly Dallas can get him integrated—is a question that begins immediately.

His arrival doesn't erase what happened against Baltimore.

It doesn't repair every injury in the secondary.

And it certainly doesn't absolve the defense of the mistakes it has already made.

But it does remove one excuse.

Dallas knows it has a problem.

Now it's trying to do something about it.

The Ghost of 2002

There is a temptation to look at Houston's 0–3 record and see relief.

Don't.

The Cowboys have already been on the other side of this story.

In 2002, Dallas had the history.

Houston had nothing.

No winning tradition. No established identity. No NFL history at all.

Then the ball was kicked off.

And none of it mattered.

The Texans built a 10–0 lead. Dallas fought back to tie the game. Then David Carr found Corey Bradford for a 65-yard touchdown, and Houston never surrendered the lead again.

Late in the fourth quarter, Seth Payne dragged Quincy Carter down in the end zone for a safety.

Texans 19.

Cowboys 10.

Houston became the first expansion team since the 1961 Minnesota Vikings to win its inaugural game.

Dallas became the answer to a trivia question it never wanted to be part of.

That's the useful part of remembering 2002.

Not revenge.

Not some manufactured grudge between players who weren't there.

Perspective.

The better résumé didn't matter once the game started.

Neither did the expectations.

One team played well enough to win.

The other didn't.

No Time to Feel Sorry for Themselves

The Cowboys could spend this week thinking about everything that went wrong in Rio.

The turnovers.

The defensive breakdowns.

The injuries.

The decisions at the end of the game.

There will be time to examine all of it.

We've already started.

But Sunday isn't an autopsy of the Baltimore game.

It's another football game.

Houston doesn't care that Dallas nearly beat the Ravens.

The Texans don't care that the Cowboys believe they're improving.

And they certainly aren't going to apologize for being 0–3.

Twenty-four years ago, Houston welcomed Dallas into a brand-new stadium and showed the Cowboys exactly how little reputation matters once the ball is kicked off.

Maybe that's the piece of Cowboys history worth carrying back to Houston this weekend.

Not what happened.

Why it mattered.

Dallas left Rio with reasons to believe it is getting better.

Houston is where the Cowboys get their first chance to prove it.