Giants Can’t Find a Way To Use Shockey Effectively
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During the Giants’ bye week last year, Jeremy Shockey and his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, came to an agreement with the team on a five-year contract extension that could pay the tight end $30 million and ensure he would spend the prime years of his career as a Giant. Shockey responded by playing a great game the following Sunday, catching five passes for 129 yards and a touchdown against the Dallas Cowboys. The Giants have played 19 games since then, and they haven’t gotten their money’s worth.
Shockey has a pedestrian 69 catches for 791 yards in those 19 games, including just three catches for 15 yards in Sunday’s victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. With just 23 catches for 240 yards this season, Shockey’s catches per game, yards per game, and yards per catch are all career lows.
None of this makes Shockey the stereotypical overpaid athlete who got his millions and decided to coast, though. The real problem is that shortly after signing him to that contract extension, the Giants changed the way they used him. The speed Shockey displayed at the University of Miami attracted the Giants — and many other NFL teams — to him when Big Blue chose him in the first round of the 2002 draft, and in his first four years in New York, Shockey’s value came mainly from his ability to use that speed to stretch the field. However, in an effort to help quarterback Eli Manning develop into a more accurate passer, Giants offensive coordinator John Hufnagel began late last season to call shorter passes, and he has continued with that game plan this year. That strategy is working for Manning, who is having his best season, but shorter passes don’t take advantage of Shockey’s strengths. In fact, the changes to the Giants’ offense in many ways defeat the purpose of giving Shockey that contract extension.
After that Dallas game last season, Shockey was averaging 17.3 yards a catch, the kind of number that is much more common in wide receivers than tight ends. But the Giants started using him as more of a traditional tight end who serves as a possession receiver rather than a big-play threat, and for the rest of the season, he averaged just 11.9 yards a catch. This season he is averaging 10.4 yards a catch, and he hasn’t caught a single pass of 20 or more yards after having 44 such catches in his first four seasons.
Shockey also isn’t getting the ball thrown to him as often this year as he did last year. Last season Manning attempted 557 passes, and Shockey was the target on 122 of them, meaning that 21.9% of Manning’s passes went to Shockey. Shockey ranked second among all tight ends in the league in the number of passes thrown his way, behind only San Diego’s Antonio Gates. This year Shockey has been the target of 41 passes, ranking him 10th in the league among all tight ends in the number of balls thrown his way and making up 17.6% of Manning’s 233 throws. As Manning distributes the ball more equitably this season, Shockey and Plaxico Burress, the team’s top receivers last year, are both catching fewer passes, while just about everyone else — Amani Toomer, Tim Carter, David Tyree, Tiki Barber, Brandon Jacobs, and backup tight end Visanthe Shiancoe — is on pace to catch more passes this year than last.
On Sunday, the Giants tried to make Shockey a focal point of the offense. Manning threw 10 passes to him, but he caught just three. The winds at the Meadowlands contributed to Manning’s problem connecting with Shockey; on a nine-yard catch that was his only noteworthy play of the day, Shockey had to adjust to the ball in air as a gust appeared to take it higher than Manning intended. However, the wind can’t explain the entire problem, as Shockey dropped three balls, and Manning managed to connect with his other receivers despite the wind. On his passes that didn’t go to Shockey, Manning completed a respectable 13 of 21 passes for 139 yards.
Hufnagel has shown a willingness to try different formations to take advantage of Shockey’s skills. He frequently lines up in the backfield, rather than at tight end, and goes in motion, playing the H-back position popularized in Joe Gibbs’s Washington Redskins offenses of the 1980s. That should play to Shockey’s strengths because defenses usually assign a linebacker to cover the offensive player who goes in motion, and Shockey can outrun almost any linebacker in the league. But so far this hasn’t resulted in an increase in his receiving productivity, and on Sunday, the Giants burned a timeout after Shockey appeared to line up in the wrong position.
The Giants also sometimes use a sixlineman formation in which offensive tackle Rich Seubert lines up at tight end on the opposite side from Shockey. That formation signals to the defense that it should bring the safeties closer to the line of scrimmage to help against the run. Having the safeties closer to the line gives Shockey a better chance of getting past them on passing plays, but that hasn’t done much for his productivity either.
Although Shockey said after the Giants’ September loss to the Seattle Seahawks that the team was “outcoached,” he generally hasn’t complained about his diminished role in the offense. As long as the 5–2 Giants stay in first place, there likely won’t be many complaints.
But for a player who is treated like a star by the fans and paid like a star by the team, Shockey’s production on the field lacks star quality.
Mr. Smith is a writer for FootballOutsiders.com.