BPA makes sense when you have a lot of glaring holes on your roster, which I can't say is not the case with the Hawks. Once a team starts getting into the playoffs phase, I don't think BPA makes sense as a solo strategy.
PC has never been President. He was hired as Executive VP. After SB48, John was promoted to Executive VP and PC was given the title Executive VP of Football Operations. According to executive protocol, this means JS outranked PC, but neither had authority over the other - they both reported to the President (Chuck Arnold) who reported to the Board.
Overall, the Seahawks are in great shape compared to most other teams, but the cap situation is a lot worse than most believe. It's worse than last year when they could only afford on mid-top FA (Jones) and a few mid- to mid-low range FAs (Bobby, Love, Bush, Reed, Edwards, Lock).
It sure *seemed* like JS deferred to PC concerning key personnel moves, at least before the last two drafts. I have nothing to base this on, but I always felt that the JA trade, for instance, was a little bit of a bite-the-tongue move for JS, a move I felt he wouldn't have made on his own. This is conjecture on my part. There were other moves that sure looked to me like the heavy hand of PC was in play, but again, just conjecture.
I think you're right. Official titles and authorities don't always paint the real picture. I see PC as much more extroverted with a very strong will and it is plausible that John deferred to PC based on character and expertise (which players he really, really needed. "I just gotta have this guy to make the defense work", etc.).
He needs to pick it up. The last two drafts have obviously been very solid, but there was a pretty long relative dry stretch before that. Virtually all of the big trades have been awful value, most of the free agent acquisitions are ho hum, and the salary cap is currently not in great shape. It's obviously unclear how fault is attributable between he and Carroll for the above...but he needs to treat this coaching reset as a personal reset as well. I used to be 100% in his corner, but the trades have been getting to me (RW notwithstanding which obviously helped with the last two drafts).
This is important, but one small facet of a GM's job. How about tact and interpersonal relations? And as illustrated above, he created a huge rift within the team when this leaked out and was the beginning of the end of this era.
This is a really good example with lots of parallels to the Seahawks.
I'm inclined to give JS the benefit of the doubt.
It only created a rift with Russell Wilson as he didn't understand the process of how John comes from the Green Bay brain trust of always looking for QBs. Matt Hasselbeck, Mark Brunell, Aaron Brooks, Aaron Rodgers, and others all started their career with the Packers despite Brett Favre being the guy. John wouldn't be doing his job if he wasn't looking and creating competition. The true rift actually occurred after the certain game with the Patriots but despite that multiple times many players returned for return stints. Luke Willson, Bobby Wagner, Jarran Reed, Tarvaris Jackson, Marshawn Lynch, and Bruce Irvin to name a handful. A lot of that was Pete but it can't be discredited the partnership created by him and John to create a culture where players want to come back. John knows what he's doing. He's not perfect but no GM ever is.
