Trying to be a contrarian but proving the point of the article
A little strong; I'd say more like 'anecdotally suggesting' than proving.
Looking at that list of players in the NFL and success, you can almost certainly build a strong case that having NFL quality players isn't sufficient to have really good seasons.
As you point out, that squad alone had a disproportionally high number of drafted players. Do we need that many to be successful? If we had that many every season I think we'd have numbers closer to 25 playing in the league at any given time (assuming five drafted to three-year contracts and two of them get a second five-year contract on-going: 5*3+2*5=25) That would put us up between Clemson and Texas players in the NFL.
So, yeah, we'd be successful in that case.
What if it was only 3 drafted with 1 getting to the second contract (15 in the league...closer to Temple)? Would that be enough to get really good seasons? I do think that there is a critical mass requirement, but what it is I sure don't know.