Well yes, that applies to every player who allows their contract to finish entirely. I thought the conversation was about him signing an extension, which I presume would be before the existing one ends. Which is by far the most popular form of contract agreement.
Agreed, his free agent salary would likely be higher than his extension one. But there has been little indication, in fact - zero indication, that this whole contract issue is about us not arriving at the right number. It seems more to be about whether the player simply wants to stay or not. I think that if he is minded to stay, it is premature to say that we will be priced out of renewing his contract. We don’t really know where he stands on money as such, it’s never really been a conversation.