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Using data from pro-football-reference.com I decided to analyze the rosters of the Super Bowl winners and losers from the past six years to get an idea of how much of an effect "homegrown" players have on the top teams in the league. Obviously, as with any data set, there is no profound truth to be established but the data is interesting nonetheless. The main goal of the study is to determine just how important a team's draft capital really is to a winning team in the NFL. Below is the list of teams with how many of their own draft picks were on the roster. For the hell of it, I also added T-1st which includes first rounders acquired in free agency as well.

As you can see, this year's Rams had the most self-drafted players with 32 but only one of them was a 1st round pick. The lowest total was the winning 2019 KC team with just 21 homegrown players and two 1st rounders. Their losing team the next year was the second lowest at 21 and 3. Of course, it's hard to glean too much information without analyzing every team but I don't have the time for that. Other than the one KC win, it looks like at least 26 drafted players is necessary to win a championship. Do 1st rounders disproportionately affect the outcome of the big game? Not really, the losers averaged more than the winners.

Since I don't have the time to go through every team in the league, maybe we can at least learn something about the Bears' roster construction as compared to the top teams in the NFL. I went back to Emery's last year in this chart.

Overall, the Bears have been below average but not by so much that the roster composition has been worse than other teams who have made and won a Super Bowl recently. This isn't a defense of Pace but rather a refutation of the theory that accumulating as many draft picks as possible is the only way to build a winner in the NFL. The main argument I seem to have with people is that drafting is strictly a numbers game and a staff shouldn't have the conviction to move up for their "guy" every once in a while. I think a GM/staff can be better than average and use it to their advantage. It looks like Pace's biggest mistake was using the 3rd rounders too much. Look at the amount of them on the Super Bowl winners, never under 4 of them.

No, I have come to no definitive conclusions here but I think it could further discussion. I don't think the Bears roster isn't now ready to compete with anyone else in terms of their recent drafting. The data indicates that about half the 53 man roster should come from homegrown players, we're there at least. Every GM makes mistakes, and to me, the only thing that got Pace fired was the Trubisky/Nagy pairing. I see no reason to change my belief that the head coach is the most important factor in winning a Super Bowl. Yes, you have to have a good QB but even more importantly is the compatibility with the coach. Right after that is compatibility between the coach and the GM.

Hopefully the marriage of Poles, Eberflus and Fields brings this about. I like what I've heard so far at least.