I'm not going to get into how much of an overpay Bill should suffer.
But I echo the notion that it's hard to reckon not ending up with any of Butler, Hightower, Jones or Collins, if that happens. All four were key guys (Butler only at the end, to be sure) of the SB 49 team and two were of the SB 51 team.
We have, in my perhaps biased view, the best HC/GM in sports, so there's a need for deference and humility. But while there are plausible explanations for all of the pieces, the sum total would be difficult to make sense of. Of course, if the D looks terrific next year, it becomes just one more Chapter in the BB Story. BB has been doing the unconventional and unexpected for years. People probably worried about chemistry and tipping points when Mankins was traded, and Seymour before that. The Milloy release is another example. There are of course several others. The sky has never fallen. But, still, is there a tipping point when players just stop buying in? Probably not. But maybe yes.