Getting to know the Patriots: Cuddly snakes, Mexican food and low draft picks

We've got less than a week to get acquainted with the participants in Sunday's Super Bowl LX, so let's get busy.

The NFL has facilitated the process by making players available to the media four times. Tuesday's sessions were held at the respective teams' hotels in Santa Clara.

It's a lot like speed dating. You, the interviewer, hop around and try to get to know several players on a deep level, deciding if you like them, by chatting with them for a few minutes. Unlike with speed dating, these are not 1-on-1 meetings. More like 30-on-1. So you get what you can.

Monday, I hung with the Patriots, and the team was represented in the big tent by coach Mike Vrabel and 10 players, each player stationed at a podium.

It's not a perfect set-up. Before Super Bowl III in 1969, Jets' quarterback Joe Namath held court with a small group of reporters while he was tanning poolside at the team hotel. Now, if you were to chat with a player poolside, you would be tased and arrested.

The league got big and formal, but it's the same idea.

You're looking for impressions, clues, so that when you watch the game Sunday, you're watching real people. When you see Patriots' quarterback Drake Maye drop back to pass, for instance, you know a little about left guard Jared Wilson.

He likes snakes.

One reporter asked each player what they would do if they didn't play football.

"I honestly like snakes," Wilson said. "So, I'd probably do something to do with snakes."

That comment begged for a follow-up question, but someone else jumped in with a question about motivation or Mexican food, I forget which. With luck and perseverance, I knew, we might get Wilson back to snakes.

Wilson is one of two rookies on the left side of the Patriots' O-line. He was a third-round draft pick, No. 95 overall, and now he's helping protect the NFL's hottest young quarterback. Last season the Pats ranked 31st in pass blocking; this season they were No. 7.

It's all about inner motivation, Wilson said, in a disconnected response to a question I couldn't hear.

"You look at yourself in the mirror each morning," he said, "and that's who you go to battle with."

The snake question was left hanging.

Moving on, there's wide receiver DeMario "Pops" Douglas, one of the league's smallest players at 5-8 and maybe 190 pounds.

An interviewer was putting Douglas on the spot. What's his favorite Mexican food?

"I don't want to say the wrong thing," Douglas said, truly concerned. "I like Chipotle."

He must order the diet plate, because in a league of players with tree-trunk biceps, Douglas has the arms of a placekicker. Dude is small, which is a big part of his identity.

"In high school," Douglas said, "a lot of college coaches (were) coming in, they're like, ‘Man, your film's good, but your height, your height!' ... I was on the defensive side, coach told me, ‘Your height, you should go to slot receiver,' so I went to slot receiver and ... I did great. Broke some records, and still was overlooked because of height."

Douglas played at Liberty University, the Flames. Then he was drafted down in the Brock Purdy-esque wilderness. No. 210 overall (Purdy was No. 262).

I began to understand that the Patriots are built from spare parts. Wideout Kayshon Boutte, fourth in the league this season in yards per reception (16.7), was also a sixth-round pick, No. 187, another one of the Bargain Bin Boys.

Douglas, like Wilson, said he never thought about life without football. Maybe there's a life lesson here. Put all your eggs in one basket, you might wind up with a nice basket full of eggs.

"I never had a Plan B," Douglas said. "If I wasn't playing football, I don't know what I'd be doing."

Something with snakes, perhaps?

Back to Wilson, and my persistence paid off, I ducked in a question about snakes.

"I actually used to have a ball python," Wilson says.

His mother gave him the snake for his 12th birthday, then they moved in with Jared's grandfather, who had a house rule: no snakes. Ball pythons, by the way, are a non-venemous and cuddly breed of snake. Wilson has been pining for another one for 10 years.

"Once I move into a new house, I'm gonna get me one," Wilson said, eagerly, then paused. "I gotta talk to my fiancé, see if she's OK with it. I'm pretty sure she will be."

Sure. Absolutely. She'll be thrilled. Who doesn't like a cuddly pet? Hey, foolish optimism in the face of reality is what got the Patriots where they are today. Let ‘em have their dreams.

This article originally published at Getting to know the Patriots: Cuddly snakes, Mexican food and low draft picks.