Jeremy Shockey says the Giants were right to trade him because if he stayed with the team he “would have just kept being a distraction.”
In the new issue of ESPN the Magazine, on newsstands tomorrow, the often volatile tight end sounds off – again – on the end of his time in New York and the circumstances surrounding his Super Bowl situation.
“I didn’t have any negative feelings toward my teammates. But during the (Super Bowl), in the back of my head, all I was thinking was: Get better for next season. Heal up. Heal up. Heal up,” Shockey, now with the Saints, writes in the first-person story. “I wanted to put the injury behind me, get back on the field and move on. It was over for me in New York after that.
“I’m proud of what I accomplished there. I’ll miss the city. And I think the Giants handled this whole thing correctly. They did what was best for both sides. I would have just kept being a distraction. The Giants got a great deal. But the Saints got a better deal.”
Shockey claims he was not allowed to sit on the sideline for the Giants’ game against the Patriots in Arizona, and that he was not invited to the tickertape parade or post-championship celebrations.
“When it came time for the actual game, I was f***ed either way: if I went to the Super Bowl or if I didn’t,” Shockey writes. “I didn’t want to be a distraction. What good am I with a broken leg? The Giants already have cheerleaders – why would they need me? But I decided to go at the last minute. I flew myself out on a five- to six-hour flight in a middle seat. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t do anything.
“Then the Giants wouldn’t let me sit on the sideline, so I sat upstairs during the game. I didn’t get invited to the parade or the party or the celebration, and that’s fine.”
Or it isn’t.
“It’s like how every year you get older and fewer and fewer people realize it’s your birthday. It’s supposed to be your special day, and you’re not being noticed,” Shockey writes of not playing in the Super Bowl. “It’s like you’re married to someone for 50 years, but you don’t celebrate the anniversary. It’s a day you build up to and work for, and just at the moment that you are supposed to have fulfillment and happiness – no, you don’t get any.”
Some speculated the Giants were able to march through the playoffs and win the Super Bowl because Shockey was sidelined with a broken leg, allowing Eli Manning to perform without the pressure caused by Shockey’s pass-requesting antics.
“The thing is, people look at me like I act with that edge off the field, too. Come on, if I did that, I’d be in jail or out robbing a bank right now,” Shockey writes.
“I’m human like anyone else. So it’s not a good feeling if people view it that the Giants were better without me, that my attitude caused problems. That’s their opinion. Obviously, I don’t think it’s true. Look, I’m glad my teammates won everything.”
Shockey caught five passes for 79 yards in his first game as a Saint, showing that his recovery seems complete.
“It’s hard, I’m not gonna lie,” Shockey writes of his rehabilitation. “The days feel like weeks when you can’t go out and play. It’s a long, painful, mentally challenging process coming back from an injury.
“This move is all about setting up the second half of my career and getting back to playing well again. It’s about being part of a whole season – without blowing out the whole side of my leg. You know? The dream would be playing in Tampa in the Super Bowl: different team, same results.”
Tom Coughlin, asked about the story coming out tomorrow, said today, “I don’t know anything about that. … It was my impression that he had moved on.”