Romo’s second touchdown pass was for 18 yards to Jason Witten and made it 21-13 in the third quarter.

Late in the third quarter against Houston’s backups, Romo badly underthrew Owens and was picked off by rookie Fred Bennett. It was Romo’s last play of the night and he finished 14-of-22 for 197 yards.

The Texans defensive line, led by Williams and featuring two other first-round picks, finally got the pass rush going. Houston sacked Romo twice and hurried him several other times.

“It looked like we did some better things,” Kubiak said. “We were more disruptive making their quarterback move around a little bit.”

Last year’s Defensive Rookie of the Year, DeMeco Ryans, led the Texans with eight tackles and Williams, who entered the game with no tackles, had four and pressured Romo a couple of times.

“It was good, but we didn’t do as much as we wanted to,” Williams said. “There were some times that we — that I — missed some opportunities. But we will get better at it and keep going.”

Williams said he did something different in this game, but wouldn’t disclose what it was saying only it had to do with his approach. Whatever it was, he said it made him feel “a lot more comfortable.”

Julius Jones and Marion Barber combined for 16 carries and 48 yards rushing for Dallas. Jones had a long run of 12 yards.

Nick Folk added a 23-yard field goal for Dallas in the fourth quarter. The Texans’ last score came on a 17-yard pass from Sage Rosenfels to David Anderson with 2:57 to play.

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