I don't believe I said House is worth $6M, I believe I said he might get $6M. There is a difference. I also said that I don't think the Packers will pay him that much. I normally talk about what a player might receive, not what he is worth, because I have no idea what any player is really worth. Because of circumstances on a particular team, a player might get a much larger contract from one team than what most teams would pay him. Does that make him "worth" the higher contract? In that thread, I think I also said that a team without a lot of large contracts and a need at CB could easily decide to give the $ to House to be their starter.
I think Shields is an example of that. GB really needed to keep him at the time. Hawk's last contract when negotiated was, too. Probably TJ Lang, too. With the state of the Packer's O-line at the time, they really needed to keep Lang, and since they had the ability to do it under the cap, they probably paid him more than most teams might have been willing to at that time. I think it can be argued that the same thing happened with Finley, although on a short contract the concept of a player's "worth" can be skewed. Flynn's contract with Seattle is another example. I know Clay Matthews is worth $2M/year, but is he worth more than $13M? Is he worth almost 10% more than any other LB in average salary just because GB paid him that much? I doubt it, although he might have had more takers at that amount than just GB.
Even if you believe Shields is "way better", the difference between $10M/yr and $6M/yr is quite a bit. Shields average salary is the 6th highest among CBs on this years' list. Something around a $6M average would be around 18th on this year's list, probably a few notches lower for next year, when negotiated. A team identifying House to be a starter for them should be willing to pay that, and I think he has a decent chance of finding that type of team.