Dallas Cowboys vs Houston Texans, Week 4 2026

Cowboys vs Texans is the 25th Season game in Houston, and the league picked the right opponent. Dallas was the first regular season team to visit Reliant Stadium back in 2002. Same two clubs, same building, same name on the front of it, twenty four years later.

Kickoff is 1:00 PM ET on Sunday, October 4, noon on the Houston clock, on FOX. From the opening snap this page runs itself: live score, real time score, game leaders, box scores, play-by-play with the game flow chart and team statistics, every panel updating without anyone hitting refresh.

Cowboys vs Texans also carries a series that has stayed remarkably close. Dallas leads it 4-3, and Houston is playing to square it.

Cowboys vs Texans Start Time, TV Channel and Live Stream

Date	Sunday, October 4, 2026
Kickoff	1:00 PM ET / 12:00 PM CT / 11:00 AM MT / 10:00 AM PT
TV	FOX
Venue	Reliant Stadium, Houston
Roof	Retractable, decided on game day
Home team	Houston Texans

FOX carries Cowboys vs Texans in the early Sunday window, a regional assignment, so the market map decides and Sunday Ticket handles anyone outside it. Both teams live on Central time, which makes this the rare road game where nobody's body clock is doing anything unusual.

The Same Opponent That Opened the Building

Houston is marking twenty five seasons, and the anniversary game is against the club that christened the place. Dallas was the first regular season opponent at Reliant Stadium in 2002, in the Texans' first game as a franchise.

Because these two only meet once every four years under the scheduling rotation, the head to head record has stayed small and tight. Dallas holds it 4-3. A Houston win evens it at four apiece for the first time since the series began, which is a strange thing to be playing for in a quarter century of football and exactly the kind of detail an anniversary game needs.

Cowboys vs Texans has never been a weekly rivalry. It has been an occasional argument about who owns the state, which is arguably worse.

Houston Locked Up Its Defense

The Texans spent the offseason paying the players who made last year's defense the best in the league. Will Anderson Jr., an All-Pro at defensive end, signed an extension. So did Azeez Al-Shaair, the Pro Bowl linebacker behind him. Danielle Hunter is still on the other edge.

That is a deliberate choice about identity. DeMeco Ryans has built this team from the front seven outward, and rather than let the core reach free agency in staggered years, Houston paid to keep the middle of it together. Cowboys vs Texans is the first look at that group against an offense that is not in its own division.

Cowboys vs Texans: Dallas Comes Back From Brazil

The travel is the part nobody circled in May. Dallas was the designated home team in Rio de Janeiro in Week 3, which meant flying to South America to play a home game, then flying back. Now it goes straight out again to Houston.

So the Cowboys arrive having not seen AT&T Stadium in a fortnight, on the back of a long haul, into a building where the crowd has an anniversary to celebrate. Brian Schottenheimer is in his second season, with Christian Parker, the youngest coordinator in franchise history, running the defense. Cowboys vs Texans is a reasonable place to find out how much that Rio trip actually cost.

Rosters are set. The cut to 53 passed on August 30. Follow the Cowboys and Texans pages, and check the NFL standings a month into the season. The rest of the slate sits on the 2026 NFL schedule.

The Roof Question in Houston

Reliant Stadium was the first NFL building with a retractable roof, which in 2002 was the reason people flew in to look at it. The panels still open, and the call still gets made close to game day rather than in advance.

For a noon kickoff in Houston in early October, that call matters. Closed and air conditioned is a different afternoon from open to a Gulf Coast sun, and it changes what you should wear, where you want to sit and how much water you drink before the second quarter. Check the club's channels on the morning of Cowboys vs Texans if you have a preference.

Everything else on the ground is unchanged from the first two home games. Lots, tailgating rules and gate policies are all on the Texans' parking and tailgating page, and the anniversary crowd means arriving earlier than you would for a normal Week 4.

Cowboys vs Texans FAQ

Cowboys vs Texans closes a circle Houston opened in 2002, with a series record on the line that has taken twenty five years to get this close. Come back on game day for inactives and the live score.

Last updated: August 27, 2026