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Eliot Wolf offers blunt reason why Patriots weren’t able to sign Calvin Ridley

Patriots owner Robert Kraft offered up an … interesting explanation for why his team came up short in trying to sign star wideout Calvin Ridley last month.

Even though New England opened the offseason with over $100 million in cap space, it lost the bidding war for Ridley — who eventually signed with the Tennessee Titans on a four-year, $92 million contract.

“We pursued the people we wanted in free agency. There was one outstanding receiver that unfortunately we couldn’t close. It was not a because of finance,” Kraft claimed. “He made clear that his girlfriend wanted to be in the south, and we had a situation where the taxes were like almost 10-percent higher.