Ironically, contrary to what many still believe, Marinelli only holds the title of DC, but his sole responsibility is the front four, while Richard actually calls the defensive signals and takes responsibility for the back seven ,..the LBs and secondary. During the rams game, we saw Richards getting in the face of the LBs,.. not Marinelli.
anything that goes down on the defensive side of the ball- all eyes point towards
As far as the DT role goes, Rod has always more preferred movement over bulk. Which is not unusual, as Jimmie Johnson's DT was the same. He didn't want DT that just take up space, (ala Freddie Gilbert, GB) he wanted his DTs moving and penetrating. and if you think about Jimmies DTs ( Lett, Maryland, Casillas, henning, jones) were actually even lesser bulk than the current Marinelli DTs (Woods, Collins) who are in the 310 pound range.
Interesting enough, reports were at draft time that the Cowboys were seriously considering mammoth DT Vita Vea (Bucs) and even at 330+ pounds the Cowboys brass considered him a 1 tech that had 3- tech traits, the " quick-twitch " as I've heard the Marinelli term called.
Imo, if you can find the smaller DT that plays stronger than what his size suggest, then i'm all for it, If you keep finding your 1 techs and 3 techs still getting wipe out vs the run (especially on the Road!!) as well as we keep rolling with these just decent/ok 1 techs every other year (Hayden, McClain, Paea, Thorton, Woods, etc. etc) then we are going to remain limited and it's only a matter of time before it comes back to hurt us. (ala Indy, Rams-playoff game)
That's not going to change until we change the preference of the DL coach, as I see it.