Passing going up or other DBs struggling has absolutely nothing to do with our opinions - these guys are graded against their peers. Shaq didn't crack the top 100 corners this year (per PFF). Top 100!!! Flowers, Coleman and Thompson graded poorly as well. And anyone skeptical of metrics or analytics (which they shouldn't be) can always look at traditional numbers like PR against or any others and see that it was a rough year for the secondary.
Again, there are two different discussions here:
1. Whether they had good years - which they objectively did not.
2. Whether or not they can be good players down the line: the book is definitely still out on that.
My opinion is that Flowers and Thompson are better served as organizational depth. I'm not advocating for them to be cut. I'm saying that I don't think either of them belong on the field for a good base defense.
Frankly, the numbers suggest that Shaq probably should be included in that, but I'm willing to bet on the talent there moreso than the other two. And I like McDougald - a lot. He makes a lot of sense to be the in the box safety in this defense.
So PFF is the bible? Because, you know, watching the games, I remember at least a half dozen times thinking 'hey nice play rook' with Flowers. Did he make some mistakes? Yep. Try to remember the years of our midget corners though, and then compare Shaq and Flowers to them.
You know who is a pretty good evaluator of DB talent? That Carroll guy. He seems to be pretty impressed with both.