Shockey shines

• By SHELDON MICKLES
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Oct 19, 2009

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NEW ORLEANS — For a week, New Orleans Saints tight end Jeremy Shockey said Sunday’s game with his old team wasn’t about him.

Teammate Drew Brees was among those who believed him. But Brees knew that would change when Shockey finally met up with the New York Giants, the team that traded him to the Saints for two draft picks in July 2008.

“All week long, he was pretty tame,” Brees mused. “You knew the inner fire was burning and was about to explode. You hoped that would be in a very productive way on Sunday, and it was.”

Shockey is usually excitable anyway, but it was evident he was more amped up Sunday. A first-round pick of the Giants in 2002, he made four Pro Bowls there before a messy split resulted in a trade to New Orleans.

“I had no point to prove … this wasn’t about proving a point,” Shockey said after the Saints dominated the Giants in a 48-27 win. “It was about helping this football team win against the other one. There’s no animosity or point proven. It’s not about a point.”

Brees, who joked earlier in the week that Shockey lobbied to get the ball all the time, made sure he got his big tight end involved real early. He threw a 7-yard pass to Shockey on the fifth play of the game, stretching Shockey’s streak with at least one catch to 100 consecutive games.

While the Superdome crowd of 70,011 gave him a rousing ovation when he made that catch, an 18-yard grab right in front of the Giants bench on the next series really got Shockey’s juices flowing.

Shockey became even more animated after being wrestled to the turf by Giants cornerback Terrell Thomas and was warned by one of the officials to watch it as he headed back to the huddle.

“They always say something to me every time, so it’s nothing new,” said Shockey. “He told me to tone it down a little bit. You can’t have fun anymore, I guess.”

But that wasn’t going to happen, not with the Saints on their way to their second touchdown of the opening quarter. Four plays later, Shockey caught a 1-yard scoring pass from Brees to give the Saints a quick 14-0 cushion.

Shockey celebrated the score by pretending to ride a horse back to the Saints’ jubilant sideline.

“I celebrate every time I score a touchdown,” he said. “I was real happy riding the horse.”

When told teammate Jabari Greer said playing your old team is like beating your brother, Shockey smiled. Greer and the Saints took a 27-7 win over the Buffalo Bills, the team Greer played five seasons for, earlier this year.