Bill Belichick once again refused to be drawn on the subject of Tom Brady's future on Sunday, insisting the New England Patriots will deal with it "at some point in time".

Speaking to the media the day after the Patriots' home playoff defeat to the Tennessee Titans, Belichick declared his pride at how hard the team had worked throughout the season, winning the AFC East with a 12-4 record.

Unsurprisingly, however, the six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach was asked about his long-time quarterback, someone he described as an "iconic figure" in the organisation.

Brady had said in the aftermath of the 20-13 loss that retirement was "pretty unlikely". The 42-year-old is set to become a free agent in March and there has been speculation he could end his long association with New England to play elsewhere.

Asked if he had a timeline in mind for when he planned to hold discussions with Brady, Belichick replied: "No."

He then said during the press conference: "I know it's out there [the question about Brady's future], just like there are a lot of things out there. We could bring up 50 questions like that one, but I've told you my status on that. You can ask all 50 of them but it's going to be the same answer 50 times.

"I'm not going to talk a lot of things about the future because I'm not prepared to talk about it."

Belichick, who also said that "nobody respects Tom more than I do", opted not to provide any update on his own future with the Pats, instead reflecting on the campaign that had just come to an end.

"We are less than 12 hours from the end of the game. Nobody has thought about the future, everybody has been focused on Miami, then Tennessee. That’s where all the focus should have been – and it was," he said in his opening statement.

"Whatever is in the future we will deal with at some point in time – we are certainly not going to deal with it now. It’s always a tough ending to the year, but we lost to a team who was a little better than us last night."