SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The Patriots, set to keep the same schedule they follow at home, were back at practice Wednesday.

Staying in the Santa Clara Marriott, holding media availability in a giant tent at 8 a.m., and busing 12 miles up the 101 to practice in Palo Alto, at Stanford, is anything but ordinary, however.

The daily running diary from Super Bowl LX week begins Tuesday night. The EA Sports campus in Redwood City, Calif., hosted the annual media party this year. The event was a little bit more quaint than past years, so the Herald team left around 9:30 p.m. after enjoying some free eats and drinks and catching up with old media friends. We shuttled back to our hotel in San Francisco to get prepared for our next shuttle at 6 a.m. down to Santa Clara for media availability. Total shuttle count on Tuesday: Four.

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Drake Maye takes all Patriots’ starting reps at Wednesday practice

Total shuttle count on Wednesday: Three. We went from the media center, which is walkable from the hotel, to the Patriots’ media availability in Santa Clara. I used the shuttle time to transcribe a 15-minute interview with rookie wide receiver Efton Chism III’s college head coach, Aaron Best. I’d like to thank the invention of Bonine for allowing me to work on a shuttle without getting carsick. No one wants to be the guy who throws up on the hour-long media shuttle. People don’t forget.

Super Bowl week is different in terms of practice availability. Each team is assigned one pool reporter. Lindsay Jones of The Ringer is handling the Patriots, while Kalyn Kahler of ESPN will be watching the Seahawks. Jones had already touched base with other Patriots reporters but also asked Nicole Yang of the Boston Globe and I about anything she should be looking out for. Pool reporters stay for the entirety of practice, write up their reports and get it approved by the team before they’re sent out. Outlets are free to use Jones’ pool report for their own use.

Wednesday and Thursday at the Super Bowl are the best days of player availability that you’ll get all season.

Head coach Mike Vrabel and wide receiver Stefon Diggs kicked things off with press conferences at 8 a.m.

Vrabel remarked that “the next 48 hours will be critical for us, as we kind of get back into our normal routine here of a Wednesday and Thursday, and then the families come in and things just start to ramp up.” The Patriots practice Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as they try to get back on a regular weekly schedule.

Diggs called his quarterback, Drake Maye, a “mini inspiration.”

“To be that young, be that mature and be able to play at a high level is something that I always wanted when I was a young player,” Diggs said.

Ten Patriots players were set up at podiums: DT Christian Barmore, WR Kayshon Boutte, OLB K’Lavon Chaisson, CB Carlton Davis IIII, WR Mack Hollins, CB Marcus Jones, RB Rhamondre Stevenson, OT Morgan Moses, ST/S Brendan Schooler and Maye.

Then every other Patriots player and assistant coach were sitting at tables and available for questions.

Players wore their Super Bowl jerseys for Wednesday’s availability.

Maye’s podium was, as expected, extremely crowded the entire time. He’s been a great quote so far this week and seems to be having at least some amount of fun with the exposure. The QB, who dealt with a right shoulder injury and illness last week, said Wednesday that he’s feeling good. He gave an interesting answer when asked who he models his game after.

“I’m trying to model my game after myself,” Maye said. “I wouldn’t say I try to model my game after anybody anymore. I’m at the stage now where I’m an NFL quarterback and trying to make a name for myself.”

Hollins addressed football questions after passing on them on Mondays because he only makes himself available to reporters on Wednesdays during the season and didn’t want to break his own precedent. His podium was also busy the entire time.

He also had a book on his table titled “Pastured Poultry Profits” by Joel Salatin.

The well-read Hollins said he’s building a farm right now and has also bought books from Greg Judy, Allen Williams and Gabe Brown.

“I think it’s interesting that farmers are kind of villainized as these people that either don’t work hard or are dumb, and neither of those things are true,” Hollins said. “Number one, it’s extremely hard to be a farmer. Number two, half the people, if not more, probably 80% of people, could not go out on a field and know what to do at a farm.”

Who needs bulletin board material for the Seahawks when a starting wide receiver is providing an unprompted defense of farmers?

I continued gathering quotes for future stories from Will Campbell, Chism, Garrett Bradbury, Harold Landry III, Robert Spillane and more before heading over the Seahawks’ media availability on another shuttle to the San Jose Convention Center. While on the shuttle, I wrote up a story about why Hollins believes he’s been on a different team every year since 2022 but wants to buck the trend by staying with the Patriots in 2026. He’s under contract next year.

I wanted to get a better sense of what the Seahawks thought of the Patriots, and I’ll write that for a future story.

I wrote most of this on the media shuttle back to San Francisco. For anyone who hasn’t read previous entries, Santa Clara and San Jose are about an hour from San Francisco, so you really have to make that time on the shuttles count.

It’s tough to find time to grab food during all of the shuttling and working, so I’ve been subsisting mostly on David protein bars, FitCrunch energy bars and energy drinks. I found time to grab lunch (a chicken shawarma bowl) and headed into the media center to do some writing, check out what was going on at radio row and guest on a Seahawks podcast (Hawk Blogger).