Seattle Seahawks head coach, Pete Carroll, said that the team is tighter than ever despite an unsteady season.

The Seahawks, who won Super Bowl XLVIII by a staggering margin and appeared in a second Super Bowl, have boasted one of the toughest, smartest defenses in the National Football League for years. Their defense, which is affectionately called the Legion of Boom, along with tight knit team chemistry, made them a perennial Super Bowl contender. With the departure of star running back, Marshawn Lynch, contract contentions with safety Cam Chancellor, and trades and injuries, some have begun to question whether that cohesiveness and the dominance of the team may be coming to an end. After their loss in the Divisional Final to the Atlanta Falcons, Carroll denied that the end was in sight.

“By the time we walked out of that locker room, because of the year that it has been and the things that we’ve gone through and the things that we overcame, the connection of our players is unbelievably tight, as much so as any team that we’ve had in the time we’ve been here,” insisted Carroll. “ I continue to feel like that, because that’s how they are and that’s how they have responded. The appreciation for one another, it was amazing and emotional and all of that. We knew we didn’t get what we wanted to get done, but we’ve got a lot of work to do. That’s kind of how we enter this offseason.”