My fault about Ross, i believe it was Woods and the rotation of others. IMO though, and this is off topic, but i thought it was our guys just getting hit in the mouth and beat up as opposed to getting out schemed. John Sullivan was wiping dudes off the line and Anderson was running 4-5 yards before even getting touched on many of those carries. Absolutely depressing to watch. Definitely need a big DT in the draft, maybe even a guy like Suh if we can get him on the cheap?
It was because their scheme allowed then to get the angle on the Cowboys DLinemen and to catch them out of place against the run when stunting.
Once the Rams scheme made the DL ineffective, the LBs had not protection from blockers.
More specifics:
On stunts 1 DL loops around while the other of the 2-man stunt tries to occupy blockers initially and should then get some space when blockers go to block the other guy.
The problem with stunts is that the looping guy takes himself out of position against the run because he is initially going laterally or backwards. Against some plays the stunting DL might end up in perfect position and get a tackle for loss which did happen for Woods at one specific play that I recall from the playoffs. The problem is that against other play calls the stunt will leave a void in the DL initially. The Rams were exploiting those voids.
Another issue with stunts is that the stunting DL is coming in at an angle and is often not in a good position to play with leverage. The leverage issue also happens when DL shoot the gaps which is another staple of the Marinelli coached DLine.
To add to the issue of.angles and leverage, the Rams ran misdirection plays that get the DL flowing in one direction and then the RB cuts back in the other direction. The Rams had some blockers stay back and then wham-block the DL or LBs as they were cutting back to follow the RBs cut back. The blocks ended up almost like blindside blocks but were not quite the illegal type of blindside blocks. Even a scrub level blocker is going to win against an All-Pro LB on a pseudo-blindside block.
The mud and then DT Woods injury just added to the Rams dominance.
The Cowboys tried to counter by using Sean Lee because he can diagnose plays better than a rookie or Jaylon but Lee had been out of action and was going against a Rams offense that had zero missed starts by their OLinemen all season.
There were too many issues for in-game adjustments to help.
I do believe that if this had been game 16 and the Cowboys faced the Rams again in the playoffs the following week that the Cowboys could have made adjustments on defense. I'm not certain the Cowboys could have made adjustments on offense with Linehan as the OC but on defense with Kris Richard they likely could have made the adjustments.
Side Note:
Kris Richard became the defensive play caller in 2018 and was basically in charge of the back 7. The problem was that Marinelli was still running the DL and KR in year 1 was not going to throw out Marinelli's entire DL scheme with Marinelli still technically in charge of the defense.
This year I expect KR to be 100% in charge regardless of title. I'm not certain he won't end up with the DC Title before game 1 arrives with Marinelli becoming a "consultant". They were going to give the DC title to Eberflus last year but he declined to accept it. You might remember before Eberflus took the Colts job there were reports of Marinelli "mulling" retirement. The "mulling" was the Cowboys telling him they were going to offer the DC job to Eberflus.