I don't know if NE signed the right players for their team and if they overpaid them, but IMO the media needs to better report on and understand contracts, market values, and salary cap management. For example, the numbers that came out for the NE signings included max contract values . . . but almost all of them have incentives that players won't come close to reaching. The multi-year deals they signed come with low first and second year salaries and final years that the players will never see and get paid out on. And unlike some other contract like Gronk, Hill, and JJSS, NE didn't tack on bogus voidable years that will escalate 80% of the cap hit when the contracts void at the end of the year. To summarize, the majority of the players they signed were on team friendly deals in spite of what the initial reports indicated. And unlike other teams that added a bunch of high profile free agent signings in prior off seasons, NE has BB running the show. The flip side would be if NE had accumulated all the cap space they had and DIDN'T use it, people would flame them for NOT spending it. So they couldn't win in the eyes of the media no matter what they did.