Low balling is all the frame of mind. It does not matter what a player is worth in the open market. It matters what the player is worth to THE BILLS.
This includes the fact that we have two young DT's behind Williams. Obviously not of the same talent level, but it all factors in. It takes into account his age. It factors in what kind of defense we are going to be running. It is also a matter of deciding if they want to keep Williams and possibly have to cut another player, this year or maybe next year, because his cap hit is too high.
They could offer him a huge contract that he would never see the end of, but all that is going to do is leave us with more dead cap space later.
Sure, we could offer a 7mil SB instead of 4, but in two years we can't sign a pretty decent player because we are 3mil short.
You seem to have a very narrow and simple view of what it takes to keep a team running. It is not about the contract one player is going to get.