I didn't present this clearly enough. If Brackett picks the guy, Guerin picks the guy. If Guerin doesn't pick the guy, Guerin picks the guy.
If a CEO gives his managers and other officers cart blanche, he has to answer for that decision. He has the power to decide how much control he would like to exert, so he is the one who gets the credit and blame.
The alternative is that we use the imperfect information we have, and the biases we've picked up from it, to just pick and choose who we want to give credit or blame to. That's speculation, not analysis, and it results in people giving the guy they like all the credit, and the guy they don't like all the blame, and justifying it to themselves with... the imperfect information that informed their bias in the first place.
So, we can either let our biases fuel themselves, or use the only factual information we have, their job titles. I know which I'm picking.
No I get what you're coming from, but the reality is if Guerin is completely hands off and just acts as a yes-man to whatever Brackett wants to do at the draft, you can say the "buck stops here" with Guerin, and ultimately Guerin will have to answer for it in some fashion, but if Brackett has sole discretion over the draft, and doesn't do well, Brackett is the first one fired, not Guerin, because in reality, Brackett is picking those guys, not Guerin.
It's ultimately pretty moot here and now, because Guerin is involved at this point, but back when Guerin publicly stated he wasn't involved at all, and Brackett had sole responsibility over the draft? I'm not putting those picks, good or bad, on Guerin. And even now, not knowing what percentage input each has over the pick, I'm not putting it all on one or the other.
I'm not going to sit here and get in an argument about hypotheticals, but I'm not going to pretend like Guerin should get all the credit or criticism for the draft either just because he's the GM. The managers and other officers still have to answer for the bad, and they still get credit for the good, even if the CEO gave them carte blanche to do what they want.
The only exception being Stramel, because we had Brackett heavily imply that Stramel was not Brackett's first choice at the draft, which would mean that wasn't just Guerin being a yes-man, it was Guerin overruling his scouting director. That would mean, to me, that Guerin has more than 50% responsibility for that pick. That's why Guerin gets more criticism for Stramel. And if Stramel turns out good, Guerin can get more credit for it too.