True that. It's amazing to me that other teams besides the Patriots sometimes draft good players.
I think there are a ton of common fallacies behind draft complaints. There's a widespread misunderstanding of how reliable draft picking is and what percentage of picks succeed leaguewide -- the notion that whiffing on a 2nd or 3rd round pick is unusual and unacceptable. (A Pats-specific version of the above: not realizing that making far more high draft picks than any other team means you will inevitably end up with a lot of misses.)
There's the idea that any good player drafted elsewhere constitutes a "miss" and a "mistake" by your team. There's the bias to remember the the prospects you got "righter" than your team, and forget the many, many players you liked who fell flat -- not to mention the Vollmers, Mankins and McCourtys who you were furious about them wasting high picks on.
Etc.
But that doesn't mean that we as fans can NEVER legitimately play I-told-you-so. IMO the key requirement is that you actually had to tell them so! (No, that doesn't mean saying "I really want to come away with Barwin, English, Maybin, Matthews or Brown" and then two years later saying "See, I
told you they should have taken Matthews!" )
IMO Cunningham vs. Dunlap is about as fair a case of second-guessing as you'll find. A good chunk of this board really wanted Dunlap, he was generally the more highly regarded player, and the Patriots took the guy playing directly opposite him one pick before him. Note that Dunlap's success doesn't necessarily make Cunningham a "bad pick" -- hopefully Cunningham will continue to develop -- but it is fair to keep an eye on the pair over time and wish for what might have been, if it's what you wanted all along.
Here's a 2010 draftday post in which the OP and I commiserate over BB passing on Dunlap, but hope for the best:
http://www.patsfans.com/new-england...e-cunningham-selection-page2.html#post1801706
Isn't it only natural for us to feel some pangs watching him now?
