Two biggest reasons why the Dallas Cowboys’ season died

Reason #2 – Defensive scheme

If you were shocked that the Rams gashed the Dallas Cowboys for 273 yards on the ground, you were right to feel that way. If you were shocked that the Rams were able to be successful against the fifth ranked rush defense, you may have missed a few trends.

For one, in two of the last three regular season games, Dallas gave up 178 yards to the Colts and 143 to the Giants. Only the Carolina Panthers in week one had more than than either of those two teams prior to that.

Something was starting to leak. That something was apparently on tape for anyone with two week’s time to prepare to see.

According to Danny Heifetz with TheRinger.com, offensive linemen Austin Blythe and John Sullivan noticed that the Cowboys defensive line put tells on tape that made them quite easy to block.

According to Blythe:

"“They’re a defensive line that really likes to move a lot. We had a pretty good tell when they were going to do that.”"

And here’s what Sullivan had to say:

"“They have good players, but we just felt scheme-wise we had a lot of tips and tells on what they were going to do in front of us.”"

Couple that with the complete lack of playmaking from the stars on the defensive side of the ball and it’s a miracle the game was as close as it was.

Linemen DeMarcus Lawrence and Randy Gregory, along with linebackers Jaylon Smith and Leighton Vander Esch combined for zero tackles for loss. The entire team produced zero sacks, zero fumbles forced and zero interceptions.

Lawrence had just 2.5 sacks in his final eight games. Gregory had just two in his final six. Cornerback Byron Jones has not had an interception since October 29, 2017.

These guys are supposed to be playmakers. Simply put, they failed at their job. Because of those reasons, the Dallas Cowboys are permanently at home.