The “I want to be traded” playbook has developed a new wrinkle.  If a players asks to be traded and isn’t traded, then he acts like he never made the request.

The latest example?  Giants tight end Jeremy Shockey, who clearly wanted (wants) out of New York and who wasn’t traded because the Giants and the Saints couldn’t agree on terms.

“Everybody said that I agreed to get traded and that I would welcome a trade or that I’m unhappy,” Shockey said, according to the New York Post.  “But you can’t find one article that had my direct quote, except from an anonymous source or from this person or from that person, OK?”

So the absence of a direct quote from Shockey means it wasn’t true?

If anything, Shockey’s comments about the Giants strongly imply that there’s a problem between the two parties, and that the Giants were yapping about it to the media even though Shockey chose not to do so.

“Unlike the Giants, I’m gonna be quiet,” he said.  “They’ve released multiple things about myself and if you look back into the media, there’s always a source.  Well I’d like to know who the source is, and we’ll go over here and we’ll deal it out ourselves because I haven’t said one negative thing towards the Giants.”

He wouldn’t talk about whether he’d welcome a trade.  “I’m not saying that — no comment,” Shockey said.  “Whatever’s happened between the Giants and myself is gonna stick between the Giants and myself.”

Shockey also said that he’ll attend the team’s mandatory minicamp and, presumably, training camp.

“I plan on fulfilling my contractual obligation but the No. 1 thing that I’m going there for is to be with my teammates [who] I miss so much,” Shockey said.

As to the scene of Shockey double-fisting alcoholic beverages from a luxury suite while his team played in the Super Bowl, Shockey claimed that the Giants wouldn’t allow him to be on the sidelines, and that the decision upset him.

The real question is whether both sides can find a middle ground.  The Giants presumably opted not to accept New Orleans’ best offer because the Giants realize that they’d have no depth behind Kevin Boss if Shockey were traded.  And Shockey’s salary is very reasonable in 2008. 

So the challenge will be to keep Shockey from becoming a problem in the locker room.  Or, to be more accurate, to keep him from becoming more of a problem than he’s been in the past.