Three groups of people - Pats fans who are constantly complaining; opposing fans who are constantly looking to dog the Pats; and media members who count on those two groups for ratings - tend to beat 'the Pats are cheap' drum whenever a former Pat signs elsewhere, or a free agent with a familiar name is signed by any one of the 31 other teams. The reality is that due to the salary cap the difference in money spent is minimal. For example, the difference in the amounts between the teams in the link mentioned above is about 1%. That's not newsworthy, so plan B is to use the ranking of 16th. That's an inherent problem with taking a side, and then looking for stats to prove your case rather than looking at the stats with an open mind and then coming to a conclusion.
Since the team's philosophy is to spread more money throughout the roster, that means there will be a little bit less spent on the top moneymakers in comparison to other teams. That in turn means a few more vets will be lost than are lost on other teams - which is newsworthy. On the other hand, spending more money on the middle third and bottom third of the roster isn't going to make any headlines.
At this point 'the Pats are cheap' has been repeated enough times that many believe it to be true simply because they have heard it or read it so many times. It's just not true, unless your definition of being cheap is giving in to every vet's contract demands.
