SEATTLE -- Wiz Khalifa's "We Dem Boyz" blasted in the Seattle Seahawks locker room Thursday night following the team's 24-3 win against the Rams.

Players put on navy T-shirts that read 'Hold down the west' and posed for pictures to celebrate their division-clinching victory.

Pete Carroll's squad is going back to the playoffs for the fifth straight year, and the Seahawks are NFC West champs for the third time in four seasons.

Carroll was asked afterward about the path this specific team has taken.

"It has been strange," Carroll said. "It's been different than any of the other years that we've had."

The Seahawks are 9-4-1 with upcoming matchups against Arizona (5-7-1) and San Francisco (1-12). They've got an excellent shot to finish with 11 wins and overtake Detroit for the No. 2 seed.

Yet something continues to feel a bit off. The consistency the Seahawks have shown in previous years is lacking.

"We've just been out front the whole time," Carroll said. "We knew that, and we're working with that."

The goal all along has been to get back to the Super Bowl. The Seahawks have been talking about that since last season's divisional-round loss to Carolina. The feeling is that they let one get away against the Patriots a couple years ago, and there's an urgency to capitalize while the team's core players are still in their respective primes.

But with Carroll's Seahawks, nothing is simple, and there always seems to be at least a little drama. Even in Thursday night's win, cornerback Richard Sherman went after the offensive coaches for electing to pass from the 1-yard line. He even referenced the loss to the Patriots.

"We've already seen how that goes," Sherman said.

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Earlier in the season, Sherman exploded during a game against Atlanta. Wide receiver Doug Baldwin, meanwhile, flipped off offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell for a decision to have him pass the ball on a trick play against Philadelphia.

The team's leading rusher, Christine Michael, was released in November.

Earl Thomas, who had never missed a game before the season, is out for the year with a fractured tibia.

And Russell Wilson, who had never been listed on the injury report in his first four years in the NFL, battled through three different ailments in the first six games.

So Carroll is right. It has been a strange journey. But even with all that, this Seahawks team still has a chance to get back to where it wants to go.

"It's a big deal to be NFC West champs," Wilson said. "It's not easy to do."

As things stand, the Seahawks are the No. 3 seed in the NFC. If the Lions lose to the Giants on Sunday, Seattle will be back in the No. 2 spot and in position for a first-round bye.

Offensively, the Seahawks need to find some kind of consistency. They turned the ball over six times in Week 14 and scored five points against Tampa Bay in Week 12. The performance against the Rams was encouraging, but the offensive line is still a wild card on most weeks, and the run game is not always available to them.

Asked why he called a fake punt up 24-3 with 5:22 left in the game, Carroll said, "Going into the game, I was hoping we would get the chance, because I thought we were going to need the rushing yards, to tell you the truth."

Defensively, the Seahawks are still getting acclimated to life without Thomas. They feasted on Rams rookie quarterback Jared Goff, but were picked apart a week ago by Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers.

The only thing certain with this team is to expect more twists along the way. The Seahawks' ceiling is high, as evidenced by their win against the Patriots on the road in Week 10. At the same time, it's tough to know which team is going to show up on any given week.

"The good part about it is that here we have a couple more games left, and we continue to work at it and see if we can really develop some momentum and some better play and already know that you're going," Carroll said. "I'm anxious to see how we do that."