METAIRIE, La. — It’s merely a coincidence in the NFL’s schedule-making formula, of course, but the New Orleans Saints will face a familiar foe when they play the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday night in AT&T Stadium.

It’s even more coincidental when you consider the Saints (1-2) will meet the Cowboys (2-1) for the fifth time in six seasons and sixth time overall since Sean Payton left coach Bill Parcells’ staff to take the Saints job in 2006.

Payton has maintained a friendship with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and other members of the organization from his three-year stay there from 2003 to 2005, but that hasn’t stopped him from going 3-1 against them — including a record-setting 49-17 romp in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome last December.

The Saints have actually won four of five games against the Cowboys since Payton took over in New Orleans. He missed the 2012 game in AT&T Stadium while serving a season-long bounty suspension, but he clearly relishes the opportunity to match up with the team that once employed him.

“There are a lot of people I’m close with there,” Payton said Wednesday. “I’ve said this before: My three years there were really important and rewarding. I learned a lot.

“I think playing on Sunday night, playing in a prime-time game is exciting. Typically, for players and all of us involved, you could pick a team and go there and there are ties.”

In their most recent meeting last November, the Saints set an NFL record with 40 first downs en route to pummeling the Cowboys’ defense in a game that was also played on a Sunday night.

But it’s clear the Saints and Cowboys are different teams than a year ago, Payton said.

“I said this in the team meeting, both teams are entirely different,” he said. “Their defense is different. You see them structurally doing things differently. A lot of the personnel, almost their entire front, looks new. That game (last season) took on a certain way and went in a certain direction.

“I think this will be a real good challenge for us. This is a team coming off of two (straight) wins. … Both of their wins have been on the road, which is tough to do, so you see them playing with confidence. This team hasn’t beaten Dallas, last year’s team did. There are a lot of new faces here and there as well.”

With the Saints trying to even their record after getting into an 0-2 hole to start the season, Payton is more focused on the present rather than the past with his team coming off a 20-9 victory over the Minnesota Vikings.

Payton said working on the details was the message this week.

“There are a lot of things from the game we just played that we have to clean up,” he said. “The message is pretty simple. We’re really in a race to improve and just like every other team in our league is, we’re very early in the season.”