I think there is some at least reasonable chance he stays. Here's my reasoning:
1. Saints simply not going to give up their high first round pick and pay Butler the sort of money he wants.
2. So then we have a situation where he first signs the tender and then a trade is made with the Saints. Let's assume his fair market value on the open market would be something like $13m a year plus a signing bonus. Belichick gets him for one year for under $4m. So that's maybe a $10m differential the Saints have to pony up in the way of draft picks before the trade is even equal in monetary terms.
3. So what would the Saints have to give up to make the trade worthwhile for the Patriots? Perhaps pick 32 plus a second or third rounder. Are they willing to do that? Who knows.
4. But the key here is that this is not up to Butler himself. This is purely a decision between the Saints and the Pats. Butler is powerless here. Maybe this was already a done deal at the time of the Cooks trade and all we've seen lately is for show. But maybe they are still negotiating (making the Saints' praise of Butler yesterday weird) and things could still go either way.
Agreed, but adding a couple other considerations ..
We're all focused on NOL because the media is focused exclusively on them. But we can't really exclude the possibility that another team has a package ready that both the Pats and Butler find acceptable. The Titans still have about $38M in cap space, their secondary still needs help, and they have the #5 and #18 in the first round (they'd have to give up the #18 in a formal RFA offer sheet transaction).
Also, we don't know what the Pats might think is acceptable compensation. There might be a number of different combinations of picks that could work, possibly even a player (good-but-underused LB, RB, TE, SS ...).
It's not an absolute
must, aside from a formal offer sheet transaction, that a deal happens before the draft. There may be a team out there who would wait to see which corners are off the board by the time their pick comes up who could pull the trigger on a trade for Butler
during the draft, e.g. Welker and Moss in 2007.
And it's still possible that Butler agrees to an offer from the Pats since all the assumptions that Butler must be pissed/resentful at the Pats are just that - assumptions.