We are very acclimated to pythons. We owned a ball python for decades named Nero and loved it so much that we trademarked the news platform mediapython.com after it of which the branded image is the distinctive picture of a ball python.
One thing people may not realize about pythons is their subtle strength. When we held Nero , he was cold blooded but if you squeezed his body it was solid muscle. You could not penetrate that muscle no matter how hard you squeezed. In addition when we fed him he would move so fast to coil around his prey if you blinked you would miss the strike. And he never missed always constricting around the center of the body so the 4 feet could not sctatch him and he could not be bit from the front.
That being said, to see a snake of this size roaming the Everglades is a scary thought to almost all the wildlife this monster would encounter unless he was already fed. Thank God they caught it