Dallas Cowboys fans need to come down off the ledge. An 0-2 start in pre-season, as long as it’s not accompanied by crippling injuries, means absolutely nothing. All Wade Phillips really wants is to get to the Sept. 7 opener in Cleveland with all hands on deck.

Admittedly, he’d feel better if his players would immediately start eliminating stupid penalties. Improved special teams play would also be encouraging. But for a team with upgraded personnel over the one that posted a 13-3 mark in 2007, good health is all that counts.

Down the road in Houston, meanwhile, nobody needs to talk fans off the ledge based on the first two weeks of the pre-season. The emotional factor, in fact, is just the opposite. Texans fans, sniffing the first winning season in franchise history, are perhaps too giddy after victories over Denver and New Orleans.

To be sure, there is more reason for optimism that at any point in the six-year history of the Houston franchise. But lack of a pass rush, Ahman Green injuries that have led to a revolving door at running back and employing Cowboy castoff Jacque Reeves at cornerback are concerns that can’t be dismissed.

Given those backdrops, the state’s two NFL teams collide on national TV (CBS) Friday night at Texas Stadium. As preseason football goes, this will be as good as it gets. Both the Texans and Cowboys plan to play their starters into the third quarter. There may even be more than the usual intensity.

After all, the Governor’s Cup is on the line.

As far as bad blood, however, none really exists between the organizations. The Texans, though they are responsible for the single most embarrassing moment in Dallas’ history, are not looked upon as much of a rival by “America’s Team.” Division foes Washington, Philadelphia and the NY Giants are Dallas’ rivals.

Actually, it’s much for the same for Houston. While there is clear animosity between Texas’ largest cities, the teams the Texans really dislike are Tennessee and Jacksonville, in that order. They are trying to get good enough to be able to call the Indianapolis Colts a rival.

Houston, however, will always be somewhat of a burr under the saddle of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones because of what happened the night of Sept. 8, 2002. With a national TV audience looking on, the Texans became the first NFL team in 41 years to win an expansion season opener.

Not only did that 19-10 decision humiliate Jones, Houston’s magnificent Reliant Stadium rubbed salt in the wound. There are those who believe the Dallas owner felt worse about how his own Texas Stadium stacked up against Reliant than the beating the fledgling Texans put on the hapless Cowboys.

To Jethro’s credit, he didn’t take it lying down. The Cowboys have since rebounded to become one of the top three or four teams in the NFL and they are playing their final season in Texas Stadium. Next year they move into the spectacular JerryWorld, which by most accounts is the be all and end all of modern stadiums.

If the Cowboys and Texans don’t have much of a history, or a raging dislike for one another, that certainly wasn’t the case when it came to the Cowboys and Houston Oilers. Mention Oilers to colorful former Cowboys GM Tex Schramm and it immediately spiked his blood pressure. The history is worth retelling.