Do I understand you correctly? You know that other teams would not have offered him a similar contract because if so then he wouldn't have resigned with Buffalo?
One goal of any decent GM is to resign their own free agents prior to hitting the open market. Every year there's dozens of free agents that resign before free agency. Most top players, especially quarterbacks, resign without a franchise tag being used. On this board, we argue every potential free agent and for virtually any decent player there's emotion around the arguments pleading with the front office to sign the player before they test the waters. How often does someone on this board still lament that we let Pat Williams go when he was more than willing to resign with Buffalo at a reasonable price before he became a free agent. In most cases, the team does need to make a substantial offer. Otherwise, most players will do as you say, they want to see what they're worth on the open market. Whitner wouldn't sign for what the Bills were offering, but, there was a price he would have signed for. He likely will end up making at least as much on the open market than he was asking for from the Bills. Many of us (including me) don't think the Bills should offer what he's asking. That doesn't mean that there won't be another team willing to offer it. And, it may just be a good move for that team. I understand your point that you don't believe Merriman will pan out. I have no idea other than I hope (as you do as well) that he does. But, I believe that if Nix feels it's a good risk while having all of his medical reports, then I'm glad he took it.