EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Were Doug Baldwin a politician -- which he very much is not -- you would have described him as "on-message."

Multiple times, as he stood in front of his locker still in his blue Seattle Seahawks uniform after Sunday's 27-17 victory over the Jets, Baldwin was asked to talk about his quarterback, Russell Wilson. Each time, he smiled and talked about the bigger picture.

How tough is Russell?

"He's tough, but you've got 52 other guys in this locker room that are tough," Baldwin said. "It's not just one guy that's tough. That's the environment we have here. In this locker room, you have to be tough."

What's it like to play with a quarterback who can do the things he does?

"It's great to play for the Seattle Seahawks, man," a smiling Baldwin said, his hands gripping the inside part of the collar of his shoulder pads. "We've created an environment and a chemistry within our locker room where you've got to fight for everything; compete at the highest level."

Is Wilson's performance a credit to his preparation?

"The work ethic in this locker room is second to none," Baldwin said. "You have guys like Tyler Lockett, playing with a PCL tear. Jimmy Graham shouldn't be playing right now. Christine Michael, guys like that, playing through the stuff they're playing through. It's inspiring to be a part of it."

What's the best thing about these first four games?

"That we're 3-1."

That's the scariest thing about it, too. The Seahawks saw their quarterback sprain his ankle in Week 1 and his knee in Week 3. Their starting running back, Thomas Rawls, has a broken bone in his leg. Graham, the big tight end, was a huge question mark coming off a patellar tendon tear. The offensive line, always an early-season nettle in the Pacific Northwest, wasn't at full strength until rookie first-rounder Germain Ifedi was finally healthy enough to join it Sunday. After the first two weeks of the season, they had exactly one touchdown.

But heading into their bye week, the Seahawks are 3-1. That soft rumble you heard was the rest of the NFC shuddering. Not only is this team 3-1 in spite of all that's gone wrong, but there's probably no team in the entire league that's more sure of itself.

"I'd like to play next week," Seattle cornerback Richard Sherman said, looking ahead to the team's Week 6 game against Atlanta. "I heard Julio (Jones) went off today. That'd be fun. Three-hundred [yards]? That's what he had? That's going to be a fun matchup. But I think we need some rest. We've got some guys banged up. Our quarterback probably needs a week or two. I mean, he played a fantastic game. But it's going to be a great break for us."

Cornerback Richard Sherman and Bobby Wagner celebrate after Sherman intercepted a pass against the Jets on Sunday. AP Photo/Bill Kostroun

It may well be that the chance to beat the Seahawks this year has come and gone. If they're only going to get healthier and better from here, you'd have to view them as the conference favorites -- especially with Carolina and Arizona struggling to find their footing. But if you're surprised at the way the Seahawks have overcome their September adversity, know that they are not. The players in the Seattle locker room know who they are. Theirs is a confidence that's generated internally, which is by far the strongest kind.

"There's not much we haven't dealt with, good or bad, around here the last few years," linebacker Bobby Wagner said. "We've handled the highs and the lows."

This group of Seahawks has mostly known highs. They have reached the playoffs in each of the past four seasons, played in two Super Bowls and won one of them. They expect a lot of themselves and of each other.

But what strikes you about this group is what emanates from someone like Baldwin. His team-first messaging isn't just a typical athlete leaning on the easy sound bite. It's an effort by a young man of great internal strength and confidence to make a specific point to the wider world.

"That's a good word -- messaging," Baldwin said. "That comes from Pete (Carroll), from our coaching staff, from the top down. The message is always team-first, everything about the team."

Carroll's great achievement as a head coach may be that his very successful team is not a conglomeration, but a collection of internally strong individuals in the mold of Baldwin, Richard Sherman, Wilson and Wagner and Earl Thomas and Michael Bennett and on and on and on throughout the locker room. Athletes who can be outspoken on social issues because they've thought about them. Players who can respond with nuance to even the questions that don't seek it.

For example: After the crowd dissipated and Baldwin was still standing there in his full uniform, he got one final chicken-and-egg question. Are the Seahawks so self-assured because they have managed to collect self-assured people? Or does the internal confidence of the individuals come from the atmosphere in the building?

No surprise, Baldwin had a thoughtful answer.

"The players who've been able to show that internal strength are the ones that have been able to stay here," Baldwin said. "The players who have been here a while make this locker room what it is. The guys who haven't shown that strength, that confidence, I think, are the ones that weren't able to stick around."

The result is one of the scariest teams in the league. The Seahawks are loaded with talent, of course, or none of the other stuff would matter much. But this ability they have to keep their eyes forward and their self-belief strong is what makes this team one of the surest bets in the NFL to build on their good start. The fact that they now have two weeks to rest and get healthy before they get going again is just a bonus. As if they needed one.