Tom Brady gave no indication about his playing future after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were beaten by the Dallas Cowboys 31-14 in the Wild Card round on Monday.
It was a tough game for the Buccaneers, failing to score in the first half as they went in at half-time trailing 18-0, and they were unable to make the Cowboys nervous down the stretch.
Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott produced the best playoff performance of his career, completing 25 of his 33 passes for 305 yards, throwing four touchdowns and rushing for another, with no turnovers.
Things were far more difficult for Brady, who completed 35 of his personal playoff record 66 attempts for 351 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.
Brady, who this season set the new NFL record for pass attempts and completions in a regular season, will be 46 years old by the time the 2023 season begins.
He made no commitment one way or the other when asked about his future during his post-game media availability.
"I'm going to go home and get a good night's sleep – as good as I can tonight," Brady said. "This has been a lot of focus on this game, so it will be just one day at a time, truly."
Brady went on to discuss why he felt the Cowboys deserved the result, and the pain of falling short.
"It's always tough, but we didn't earn it, and they did," he said. "I think that there's a part of football where sometimes you get lucky, but most of the time the team that earns it, wins.
"They played good all year, they played good tonight, they played well as a team, they're very coordinated, they played well on offense, they played well defensively... we just couldn't get enough done offensively to put any pressure on them.
"There's lessons for all of us in every year of our life. You always want every year to end great, but unfortunately sport doesn't work that way.
"There's 32 teams in the league, and they're all very competitive, and only one is going to feel really good at the end of the year. There's many teams that won [this weekend], and there's going to be seven of the eight that don't feel great at the end of the year.
"That's why it feels good to be on top, when you win it all – it's a great feeling."
Brady is now an unrestricted free agent, and will have his choice of potential destinations if he decides to play on in 2023.