I am answering your earlier question. I ignored your latter question because it's moving the goalposts, and incidentally the Patriots didn't sign anyone for over $5 million a year last year either. You have no way of knowing how many "higher priced" free agents they tried to sign last year, so you have no way of knowing if this year is in any way unusual.
You joined a discussion that actually jumped threads, concerning whether the Patriots were up against the cap. Previously posters cited reports that the Patriots had offered large contracts as proof that the team was willing to spend in a tight cap.
So ironically the point of my post agrees with you. I was offering a different perspective on the reported bidding by saying no one knows what is happening, and Bill might be just raising the prices.
But we have to start somewhere. It's a forum to chat. If we can't believe multiple reports concerning offers from confirmed sources, what is there to talk about?
EDIT - Here's my post in the Mike Reiss thread this AM, which pretty much agrees with you. Sorry for the confusion.
"I've accepted long ago to never know what BB is really thinking so, of course this is just conversation/speculation. We never know what is going really on behind the scenes or if the Patriots are serious contenders in certain situations.
The point is that while people used reported Patriot's offers to Humphries, Cook, Beasley and interest in Tate/Amenedola as proof they were willing to spend in FA, I could just as easily see BB chuckling that he forced Vrabel, Gruden, and division rivals Bills, to bid against themselves by extending offers creative enough to get a no, but get the price up."