The New England Patriots dealt with a lot during Matthew Slater’s time with the team. Between Deflategate and Aaron Hernandez being arrested and charged with first-degree murder, many wondered if New England would crack under pressure.

But the Patriots never did, and Slater credited Bill Belichick for keeping the team together during adversity.

Speaking to MassLive’s Karen Guregian on the latest episode of “Eye On Foxborough,” the former Patriots captain revealed how they were able to continue to have success despite going through difficult challenges throughout his time in New England.

“Part of that is you have to give credit to coach. I mean, he had a unique ability to guide us through that noise, those obstacles and keep us focused on the task at hand,” Slater said. “And that speaks volumes to his leadership and his ability to focus his players, motivate his players, and then get the best out of us. And you can’t say enough about the character of the men in those lockers. When we were going through those times, and we were dealing with those challenges, there are so many high character-character men that carried themselves with a great deal of integrity, had great perspective on not just football, but on life and showed great resolve.

“You can’t talk about all of them because there’s 53 guys on a team every year,” he continued. “You’d like to highlight some of them like the (Tom) Bradys the Gronk’s, the (Tedy) Bruschis, the (Mike) Vrabels, (Julian) Edelman’s and so on so forth. But everybody in there had a great deal of character and think that carried us through adverse times.”

Slater made quite the impact on the Patriots and on the NFL as a whole. It will be difficult to fill the void he left behind after retiring this offseason, but the influence he left behind will likely still be felt as a new era of football begins in Foxborough in 2024.