Shockey Still a Brash and Emotional Presence

NEW ORLEANS — Jeremy Shockey was a member of a Super Bowl championship team in the 2007 season as a tight end for the Giants. But it was hard for him to enjoy it because his season ended in Week 15 when he broke his left leg.

In his sixth season at that point, all with the Giants, Shockey had worn out his welcome and did not watch the game from the bench area. He was traded to the New Orleans Saints before the next season.

Shockey now has another chance to reach the Super Bowl as the Saints prepare to host the Minnesota Vikings in the National Football Conference championship game next Sunday.

But his condition to perform in it is uncertain, and Shockey was not willing to discuss it Saturday after the Saints’ 45-14 victory over the Arizona Cardinals.

“You guys have to stand somewhere else,” Shockey abruptly told reporters who gathered near his locker.
They had hoped to ask him about his health, particularly a possible recurrence of a toe injury after Shockey caught three passes for 36 yards from Drew Brees.

The final catch was on a 17-yard play for a touchdown that put the Saints ahead, 14-7, midway through the first quarter. Shockey had missed the last three games of the regular season — all Saints defeats — with a toe injury.
But after his touchdown catch, Shockey limped to the sideline, sat down and was surrounded for a few minutes by Saints medical personnel. Although he later returned to the game, his limp was noticeable, even when jogging in motion before the snap of the ball.

In the early minutes of the game, after Arizona took a 7-0 lead on a 70-yard run by Tim Hightower on the game’s first snap, Shockey was a factor in many ways. He excited the 70,149 fans with exaggerated body language. After one reception, he exchanged body bumps and harsh words with Antrel Rolle, an Arizona safety.

Shockey pounded his fists into his own helmet. He has never lacked for swagger, having played in college for Miami, when it was the best team in the nation and one of the most self-confident.

At 6 feet 5 inches and 251 pounds, Shockey still has that air about him. On the field, he is a multiple threat because he can block or can catch passes long and short. His presence and potential open up space for Brees’s other receivers.

Against the Cardinals, Brees completed 23 of 32 passes for 247 yards and 3 touchdowns. One of them was to receiver Marques Colston, who had six catches for 83 yards, as the Saints reached the N.F.C. championship game for the first time since the 2006 season, when they lost, on the road, to the Chicago Bears, 39-14.

Like Shockey, Brees is a veteran who started his career with another team, in his case, San Diego. Shockey sometimes wears a T-shirt that Brees promotes to raise money for the city of New Orleans. On the front are the words “Our City, Our Home”; on the back are the words “Finish Strong.” Funds from the shirt sales aid local philanthropic causes.

Brees and many of the Saints players speak often about how the city is still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and how they have bonded with their fans.

“This city deserves it,” Brees said of football success. “The ‘Who Dat?’ Nation deserves it. We want to do it for them.”

The Saints have already had the best season in their 43-year existence. But after starting 13-0, they lost their last three games before a first-round bye in the playoffs.

Skeptics wondered whether they had peaked too soon or if they would be stale coming back against the Cardinals, who had defeated Green Bay, 51-45, in overtime the previous week in the wild-card game.

Coach Sean Payton playfully taunted the doubters when he began his postgame news conference. “So much for being rusty,” he said.

But the questions had permeated the locker room. Carl Nicks, a guard, said, “We needed to prove it to ourselves first of all” that the Saints deserved to be favored.

“We’re a No. 1 seed; it hurt for people to say, ‘One and done,’ ” Nicks said. “Now, we’ve shown we’re the same Saints that won 13 straight.”

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(nytimes.com)