Victor Cruz smiled when he heard the question. It was one he has addressed all season long: How has your confidence grown over the course of the season and can you keep up your astounding production?

Only this time the question came from a Spanish-language outlet and he handled it with ease, a rarity in America’s favorite pastime.

Cruz is one of 31 players the NFL officially recognizes as having Hispanic roots this season — an NFL spokeswoman said there may be more the league is not aware of. The list includes stars such as quarterbacks Mark Sanchez of the Jets and Tony Romo of the Dallas Cowboys.

Today, two of the most prominent will take the field at MetLife Stadium when Cruz, who identifies as half black and half Puerto Rican, lines up at wide receiver for the Giants and tight end Tony Gonzalez, a Mexican-American, suits up for the Falcons.

It is a telling example of the natural progression the sport has made in Hispanic communities across the United States, as the generations following immigrants from Latin American countries assimilate into American culture and, with it, take up America’s sport.

And as the fastest-growing demographic in the United States — projections have the United States’ Hispanic population tripling by 2050 — it was only a matter of time.

“There’s a natural draw to the NFL,” said Peter O’Reilly, the league’s vice president of fan strategy and marketing. “It’s a bridge to American culture for many Hispanics.”

Players of Hispanic descent have played in professional football dating back to the late 1920s. They have included Tom Flores. who was the first Hispanic quarterback and head coach in history and won Super Bowls as a player and coach, and Hall of Fame offensive tackle Anthony Munoz, and some with less obvious Hispanic surnames, like former linebacker Ted Hendricks.

Some were born in Latin American countries, such as the Argentine Gramatica brothers, but most have been born in the United States and claimed Hispanic roots.

Today's NFL features Hispanics across different positions as players — and coaches — and are scattered across high school and college rosters. This season, Ron Rivera, who is of Puerto Rican and Mexican descent and played nine seasons with the Chicago Bears,

became the third Hispanic head coach in league history when he took over the Carolina Panthers.

“When I was growing up, there was only Anthony Munoz to look up to,” said Gonzalez, who is the NFL’s second all-time leader in receiving yards. “I am glad to see more and more skill players enter the league. You can see the progression as the NFL has become more exposed to the Hispanic community and the NFL is reaping the benefits.”

The evolution is natural, but not without some initiative from the NFL. The league has radio and television broadcast agreements with the Spanish-language Univision and Telemundo networks in addition to ESPN, which airs “Monday Night Football” games on ESPN Deportes.

The league and a number of franchises also make efforts in reaching out to Hispanics in the United States at the grass roots level. Each team hosts a Hispanic Heritage month game early in the season and franchises connect with their surrounding Hispanic communities in different ways, such as through the NFL’s Play 60 youth campaign.

At this point — especially in areas with large Hispanic populations such as the New York metropolitan area — teams find themselves coming across Hispanics in the community without having to specifically target them.

“It’s not even like we say, ‘Oh, let’s go to a Hispanic community.’ We just do it now,” said Allison Stangeby, the Giants’ director of community relations. “It’s just part of our day-to-day, it’s what we do.”

The efforts have paid dividends. Super Bowl XLV is the most-watched television program ever among Hispanics, averaging 10 million viewers.

Internationally, the NFL has broadcast deals in most Latin American countries and Mexico is the league’s largest foreign market. In 2005, Mexico City hosted the NFL’s first regular-season game outside of the United States, between the San Francisco 49ers and Arizona Cardinals. The attendance was 103,467, at the time the most for a game in history. Raul Allegre, a former NFL kicker for nine seasons and member of the Giants’ Super Bowl XXI team, was on the broadcast for ESPN.

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“Neither one of those teams was very good at the time, but the stadium was packed,” said Allegre, who is from Mexico and is currently an analyst for ESPN International. “But the most impressive thing was that people came not as fans of the teams that were playing, but as fans of football and the NFL. You would see all types of jerseys. I’m sure that all 32 teams were represented that day among the fans.”

Yet, football remains a relatively unpopular sport in most Latin American countries — even in Puerto Rico, which is an American territory.

“It remains a niche sport with pockets of fans,” said David Bernier, the former Secretary of Sport and Recreation in Puerto Rico. “Most of the people who follow it here have either lived or studied in the United States. They’ve had some type of experience out there.”

Bernier said television has exposed more Puerto Ricans to the sport and seemingly it’s a similar case in other Latin American nations. And seeing a player like Cruz can only help.

Unlike the great majority of Hispanic players in history, Cruz is bilingual and prominent, having finished the regular season third in the NFL in receiving yards.

He isn’t the only player in the NFL capable of switching between English and Spanish on the fly — there are a handful of bilingual players such as San Diego’s Luis Castillo, Chicago’s Alberto Garza, plus Gonzalez and Sanchez that have made it a point to learn the league — but, behind his robust production and salsa touchdown dances that pay homage to his Puerto Rican roots, Cruz has become a bona fide star in just his second season after going undrafted out of UMass.

“He’s not the first who is fluent, but he has a great personality and he really embraces his community and his roots,” O’Reilly said of Cruz, a Paterson native. “He’s fantastic.”

Cruz, whose mother was born in Puerto Rico and moved to the United States when she was 9, grew up around the language and doesn’t mind showing off his ability to speak it.

“That’s kind of like my practice time,” Cruz said. “I get to practice my Spanish a little bit.”

With a grand stage and the language at his disposal, he aims to inspire a growing generation of Hispanic football players.

“I think as this generation turns and guys like myself and other athletes, there are going to be Hispanic kids who are going to want to be quarterbacks and receivers and all that,” Cruz said.

And maybe salsa dancers, too.

Jorge Castillo: jcastillo@starledger.com; twitter.com/jorgeccastillo