Jeremy Shockey Determined to Make Super Bowl Mark

MIAMI -- Jeremy Shockey is flamboyant. Jeremy Shockey is reserved. Jeremy Shockey is a hothead. Jeremy Shockey is cool. Jeremy Shockey is a rascal. Jeremy Shockey is a good citizen and teammate.

Welcome to Jeremy Shockey's world.

Few NFL players draw ire and praise like Shockey. Few are as imposing as this 6-foot-4, 251-pound tight end for the New Orleans Saints. He missed Super Bowl XLII with the New York Giants due to a broken left leg suffered late in the 2007 season.

This time around, in Super Bowl XLIV, Shockey enters nursing an injured right knee but said he is ready.

"I'm going to play this game like it was my last game," Shockey said Tuesday afternoon at Media Day.

Limited due to the knee injury in recent Saints games, Shockey will get the ball and a chance to do something difference-making with it in this championship game, the Saints say.

"Watching Jeremy from afar," said Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, "I didn't think I would want him to be on a team I was associated with. But up close, I love the guy. He is crazy committed on the field, in practice and in games. He is a coach's dream of a player. Now, that doesn't mean I want to go out and have drinks or dinner with him. We know that side of him is crazy committed, too."

Shockey, the party-maker.

"I'm here on a business trip," Shockey, 29, said of returning to Miami where he played in college. "I've done enough partying to last me for this week."

Since he was traded to the Saints from the Giants in July 2008, the Saints have found a different Shockey than the one the Giants experienced.

It started great with the Giants. Shockey was the league's rookie of the year in 2002. He earned Pro Bowl berths in four of his first five seasons in New York. A Giants coach and management official said that when Shockey first arrived, he was "phenomenal, a jaw-dropping pass receiver at tight end, who was big and strong and could run like few at the position. He looked like he was born to catch a football."

But in his last couple of Giants seasons, they describe him as "a loose cannon." He was "terrible" with quarterback Eli Manning, constantly screaming at him in and out of huddles. They had to beg him, they said, to attend Super Bowl XLII, and there and afterward he distanced himself from the team. Injuries began to dim his explosiveness. He was loud and he was crude, they insisted.

Shockey said here that he simply could not flourish under the Giants' new regime of coach Tom Coughlin, who arrived in 2004, and general manager Jerry Reese, who took command in 2007.

"Jim Fassel, as coach, drafted me and Sean Payton was there as the offensive coordinator," Shockey said. "But a new staff and new leadership is not the same as the guys who drafted you. Everything was different. It's not true that I had a poor attitude the year they won the Super Bowl. I was happy for my teammates. I was happy they won the game. But missing that Super Bowl with the broken leg was not a good feeling."

Payton, the Saints' coach, remembered his star tight end. Shockey trusts Payton. And trust means everything to Shockey, according to his former Giants teammate, Tiki Barber.

"You know when Jeremy likes and trusts you, and you know when he doesn't," Barber said. "He is not going to listen to someone he does not trust. I love the guy. Despite the persona he sometimes gives, he is a really sensitive person. Does he want this Super Bowl badly to show the Giants made a mistake in giving up on him? I think so."

Saints tight ends coach Terry Malone said that Shockey has been fun to coach.

"Until you stand next to him, you don't realize how big this guy is," Malone said. "He is a really smart football player. He has some rascal in him, but that is something that makes him go. I think in New Orleans and out of the glare of New York he has been able to relax, breathe. Everything he did in New York was magnified."

The good, the bad and the in-between.

If Shockey can run and play well in this game, Indianapolis Colts defensive coordinator Larry Coyer said that causes major problems for his defense. Coyer said Shockey is "as good as it gets" at tight end when he is healthy. He said the Colts will cover him in the passing game with linebackers and safeties rotating on the assignment.

Colts linebacker Gary Brackett said: "[Shockey] is a tough competitor and a tough guy. He loves football. He knows how to use his hands, how to run routes. I guess I might get him on a couple of pass plays in this Super Bowl. I know he will be a challenge."

And Colts tight end Dallas Clark added about Shockey: "He's a guy that has done so many things in this league for the position to evolve. He had a stretch there where no one was in his class. He's been dealing with injuries, but when he is healthy, he is as good as it gets. He's physical. That has always been his [style]."

Shockey runs hard on routes and he runs hard after the catch. Shockey is a dynamic run blocker. Tyler Lorenzen, a Saints practice squad rookie tight end who converted from college quarterback, said Shockey has taken him under his wing. Lorenzen said that if he had to "go up a hill and knew two guys were waiting to harm me at the top, I'd want Jeremy Shockey to go with me."

The Giants say he was a handful. The Saints say his contribution has been bountiful.

"Jeremy is a special guy, a tough guy who plays tough and plays through injuries," Saints cornerback Tracy Porter said. "From his first practice here, he was enthusiastic and still is that guy. He keeps guys loose and helps make practice fun. He sort of reminds me of myself."

Shockey said New Orleans has come "alive" with the Saints in this Super Bowl. So, too, has he.