There's too much gambler fallacy in there for me. It's ill advised to trade important draft capital for players who are wanting a big payday. When you take a big gamble it's tempting to blame bad luck when it fails but the reality is that we should have been more patient. Sound roster building is centered in building through the draft.
This take ignores positional value pretty hard.
The reason why Jamal was even on the market in the first place was that the Jets were balking at paying a safety $15m/year. Meanwhile, the best edge rushers earn nearly double that - $28m/yr T.Watt, $27m/yr J.Bosa, $25m/yr Garrett, $24m/yr Mack, $24m/yr Crosby, $22m/yr Chubb, $20m/yr Miller. Teams pay players based on perceived value, and Jamal Adams was very clearly not perceived anywhere near the top.
I also think it's debatable that he was the best safety. He was in the conversation but Fitzpatrick, Simmons, Budda, and Mathieu were regarded comparably, in addition to the Harris/Smith Vikings duo.
The draft capital we gave up for Adams was in no way "comparably little" due to Covid. Two firsts and a third is an enormous cost, as draft picks are the only way to add talent to a team at a value higher than the player's salary. Our last two off-seasons have been exciting largely due to having a good amount of draft capital to work with for once and keeping draft capital coming in should be a front office priority.
If we had low confidence in first round players in 2021 then that should have been an opportunity to acquire more draft capital by trading down or back. The Jets taking Garrett Wilson with our 2022 pick would have made this trade look bad even if Jamal had stayed completely healthy.
Ultimately, it's a bad gamble to go all in at the expense of the future because the NFL is highly uncertain. You may think we got unlucky in 2020, but I'd argue our 2020 season (12-4, WC Loss to Rams) was well within the bounds of expected outcomes for a contending team. The more talented team only wins 2/3 of the time and that Rams team was roughly as good as we were. Our offense was better, but the Rams were 4th in defensive DVOA that season while we were middle of the road at 16th.
Thoughtful post.
I dont think its gambler fallacy. I think (and the underacheiving, not unlucky, finish to the season showed it) they were looking for the piece to elevate the group they had for 2020 AND to reset the character of the team on defense - something they'd failed at doing for years. Even with his injury, all the talk on D about being 'multiple' and varied from essentially static personnel packages... that was in large part driven by the acquisition of Jamal. He was never 'just a safety'. Ever. Not before he was acquired, and not since he's been here. So hemming and hawing about how we overpaid for a safety is misplaced. He's a wildcard who factors hugely into what we want to do. And unfortunately for the team and for him, hes been injured.
As to the perceived value of the draft picks they gave up. A first round pick for the Hawks the way they typically drafted in the Russ era (post LOB) wasnt a first round pick anyway, and the fact that COVID clouded the pool of talent further - JS's assessmnet, not mine, played into the FO not seeing the gamble in the same way they would have otherwise. To me its perfectly reasonable to think that if what you need is a player to tip you to a championship in the near future and reset the identity thereafter, a bird in hand is worth more than two (firsts) in the bush. Jamal was seen as *and still is - the center of the defense. Claiming player X was a slam dunk gurantee to be a better value? That's hindsight bias. They didnt want player X for what they wanted to build. they wanted the unique piece that was / is Jamal.
I honestly think the main reason his value is questioned is because of his injury. But that can happen to any player. If we'd moved up this year to grab player x at spot #2 and given up 1st and 2nd round picks because we felt he was our future and then he blew out his knee, and lost a season or two, is that a poor decision? i think it would be seen as bad luck, not a bad move. And Jamal had PROVEN value and was in convo as the best defesive player in the league.
As to the positonal value of a safety - 2 things - Jamal signed at a time when Safeties were seeing significant money. That's changed since, but try negotiating with a top flight NFL player on the basis that the value of his position will be decreasing in the coming years. Thats just not going to work.
They werent building the roster from the floor up the way they are now. So comparing the strategy deployed in a rebuild around an influx of youth vs adding a long term piece to a roster you feel is ready to win now is apples and oranges. That, and Seattle has, and still values players based on what they need and not what conventional wisdom dictates. Its how they built their championship teams. At the time, with the roster they had, they saw a player in Jamal who was an X factor, the future and the player around which the defense would be built. In 2020, we sent the 2nd most players to the probowl and should have been tops in the league were it not for obvious snubs. The talent was there for what they pushed the chips in for.
I also think they absolutely saw a further rebuild coming and additional capital in moving Russ. JS had already explored the idea the year prior and as we now know, he had no intention of re-upping Russ. So whatever 'loss' they risked in the trade for Jamal, would be mitigated by those gains.
Im not saying they planned every move out, But in rolling the dice the way they did, between a dimished COVID draft year and the pending depature of Russ, they felt it was a solid move.
And if the team builds on what it did last year, improves on offense and clicks on defense with Jamal as the xfactor making the whole thing go, PC and JS will look brilliant again for the guy being in Seahawks Blue.
sure that's not what Schneider and Carroll had in mind . I'm sure this isn't what Adams had in mind. I get the frustration and what ifs but these are people. 
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