Patricia aside would peeps rather live in snowy Massachusetts or SoCal?
If you are an NFL QB would you rather go to a team in a sunny area, that is playoff ready, and your expectations are to fill in for Jared Goff in a city that has a pretty fair weather sports media that isn't going to ride you or a team in a cold weather city, that missed out on the playoffs, is in the middle of a rebuild, has no receivers for you to throw to, is going to hold you to the standard Brady brought, and has a notorious sports media that will rip you apart and start a hate campaign around you.
Gee decisions decisions...
Seriously until Bill actually gets these guys in the playoffs, free agency is going to be about outbidding everyone else. People trusted Brady and took discounts to play with Brady. It's a players league. They will not take discounts to be part of Bills rebuild.
Also not for nothing, and I know this has been litigated here, Cam is well liked around the league (especially players) and while he's not what he used to be, there is a perceptions that he came here and got no help from the supporting cast and it probably ended any chance of him being a starter again. So if you are an older QB like Stafford, there is definitley a reasonable fear that you come here and look worse in the passing game and now people start questioning how viable you are at a point where teams might be more willing to give up on you.
That all plays a role in it. Then you have Patricia. Patricia was not well liked in Detroit. I said in the original thread about Stafford that I thought him alone would be a difficult sell.