''I think that Tom has been a great leader for this football team this year and every year," Belichick said. ''But I think that Tom has had an outstanding season and he brings so much to our football team and all of the things that he does, his preparation, his work ethic, his toughness, his ability to lead this team and lead the offense.
''He's an outstanding quarterback. I'm glad he's our quarterback and I thought he had a very good year."
But he didn't play his best game Saturday night in Denver, where a victory would have meant hosting the AFC Championship game, thanks to Pittsburgh's win over Indianapolis yesterday.
The what-ifs lead the what-nexts for now. Even Belichick, so good at staying in the moment, couldn't help but look back at a couple of rulings that didn't go in the Patriots' favor -- a pass interference call against Asante Samuel that set up a touchdown and a non-reversal of a fumble that could have meant Patriots ball instead of an easy Denver touchdown.
''Well, there were some real questionable decisions," Belichick said. ''But the bottom line is we didn't play well enough to win; didn't coach well enough to win. Denver was the better team [Saturday] night.
''I think Denver deserved to win because they played better. There were certainly some very questionable decisions in that game that I'm surprised that was a playoff crew, but that didn't decide the outcome of the game. I think it would've been a lot worse if it had come down to one play and that play had been a questionable call or something like that. That really wasn't the case."
Jerome Solomon can be reached at jsolomon@globe.com