Bill Belichick had no interest in talking about the Patriots’ future, definitely not his own and not Tom Brady’s. But he did articulate one point.

And that is when it comes to free agents — which Brady becomes after the Patriots lost to the Titans in the NFL playoffs Saturday night — the decision on any player’s future does not lie in one person’s hands.

“Everybody’s situation on the team is different. There are no two that are exactly the same. But the future’s the future for all of them, just as it is for Tom and anybody else you want to bring up,” Belichick said Sunday at his season-ending press conference. “Certainly Tom’s an iconic figure in this organization and nobody respects Tom more than I do. I respect all the other players and coaches in the organization too. So I think that everybody that is a part of it is an important part of it, and I want to give the proper attention and communication and detail and thought into my input into those decisions.

“But any decision that’s made, it’s not an individual decision. There are other people involved, so there has to be some type of communication, understanding, agreement, whatever you want to call it, and that’s not a one-way street. I hope you can understand that. One person just can’t decide what everybody else is gonna do when players aren’t under contract, and we have a lot of players that aren’t under contract.”

It was the most expansive answer Belichick gave as he otherwise deflected questions about whether he had a timeline for when he wanted to sit with Brady, whether Brady would be the Patriots’ starting quarterback if Brady returns and whether Belichick himself will be back.

“All the future questions are the future,” Belichick said. “We’re less than 12 hours after the game.”

Brady, 42, said after the Patriots’ loss that he probably won’t retire, calling it “pretty unlikely, hopefully unlikely.” As for whether he’ll stay with New England, Brady said, “Who knows what the future holds?”