I think this last season's fiasco was Pete's final Big Balls moment personnel wise and Js will be doing more to manage the personnel going forward. Agree with your last sentence completely, pete should take the ultimate responsibility for the garbage served up on O since XLIX and before.
Blaming JS for Pete's all in go fo broke moments with Harvin, Graham, and Richardson fails to recognize as you say that Pete is head of football operations. Those three trades have cost the team a great deal indraft capital with very little in return except cap complications.
If we assess each of the three trades they were all bad trades:
- "The Minnesota Vikings traded Harvin to the Seattle Seahawks on March 11, 2013 in exchange for a first and seventh-round draft pick in the 2013 Draft, and a third-round draft pick in the 2014 Draft. Immediately after the Seahawks acquired Harvin, they signed him to a new six-year, $67 million contract with $25.5 million guaranteed." Harvin played in 6 regular season games for Seattle and in the Super Bowl. The team had to eat his guaranteed money and lost the benefit of the picks. This was a bad trade by any metric.
- "On March 10, 2015, Graham was traded to the Seattle Seahawks for center Max Unger and the Seahawks' first-round selection in the 2015 NFL Draft.?" Graham was paid $ 10 million/yr. for each of the three seasons he was here and he was never properly incorporated in to the O except to some extent in his final season when he becanme a red zone weapon. This was not a good trade interms of ROI and the team now has nothing from that first round pick or the capital of Unger.
- The team traded with the NY Jets to acquire Sheldon Richardson. "On September 1, 2017, Richardson was traded to the Seattle Seahawks for Jermaine Kearse and a 2018 second-round draft pick." Richardson played adequately, and was well paid @ $8 million/yr. For the one year rental that cost the team cap issues, Kearse, and the 49th pick in this year's draft the team overpaid. This was clearly a sub-optimal trade with nothing of value remaining for the team. Was this trade necessary, arguments can be made on both sides of the ledger.