Love that last paragraph. Draft gurus spout off all sorts of critcal data and closely rate players by comparing an 8.2 to an 8.3 and in the final analysis, one guy is great, as advertised, and the other is bust.
Makes good reading and makes a living for the writers of this stuff but really not much truth in it.
Agreed, and another thing you can never really know is how much of a draft pick's success or failure is environmentally related. For example, Cedric Benson busted spectacularly for the Bears but has had a very solid career with the Bengals. Conversely, I think it is very safe to assume that if Tom Brady had been drafted by the Bears, Browns or Cardinals he probably would have been out of the league within 3 years.
An example this year is the top 2 WR prospects (AJ Green and Julio Jones) who on paper have very little difference between them. It's entirely possible that one of them will be a star and one of them will bust. It's also possible that if they had each gone to the other's team, the situation would have been reversed.
Ultimately, a solid roster depends on your personnel people picking the right players and your coaches developing them. On both of those counts, clearly, the Bears have not met league standard.