re: Sign Mario Williams & Cliff Avril

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do teams get to tender a franchise player to whatever draft pick they want or is it already set in stone $21million = 2 first rds etc....?

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I think you're confusing restricted free agent tenders with franchise tags. There are exclusive rights franchised players (which cost more to franchise, other teams aren't allowed to even speak to them without permission IIRC) and the more frequently used generic "franchised" players. With franchised player, the team has a chance to match ANY deal. If they opt not to, the other team HAS to give up 2 first round picks for that season. That rarely (maybe never has) happens. Typically if the team applying the tag doesn't expect to keep the player, they negotiate the cost for the player since teams pretty much never want to give up 2 first round picks + a massive contract (Brees would be one of the few players worth it). So in the end the team with the player's rights will drop the cost to, say, a 1st and 2nd round picks. Or just a 1st, or even just a 2nd, which is likely what we would get for Nicks.

There is no set price for all players. There's a different price for each position (QB, OL, DL, WR, LB, DB, K, P). Just google franchise tag cost and you will find the specifics of what they have cost in the past. They changed the way the tag cost is determined this past season, so they're actually going to be slightly cheaper than what it was in 2010. I don't think the exact costs have been released yet.

The reason Williams would be so pricey is he had a huge cap hit in his final year of his massive rookie deal. Whatever the cost is to franchise a player (say, $12m to franchise a DE), the player is guaranteed at least 120% of what he made the previous season. So if Williams made $5m or something like that last year, he would cost the typical franchise cost for the DE position of $13m. But he already made more than that last season (maybe), so the NFL won't punish him for getting franchised, so he gets 120% of what he made in 2011. So it's just a debate as to whether Williams made about $13m last season or $18m last season, which is kind of tough to find right now.