[Editor’s note:  Ralph Vacchiano of the New York Daily News covers the Giants as well as anyone.  His new book, Eli Manning:  The Making of a Quarterback, looks at the stunning rise of Super Bowl XLII’s MVP.  Vacchiano has shared with us the following column, which looks at life for the Giants without enigmatic-yet-talented tight end Jeremy Shockey.]

‘Twas the night before Christmas in 2005 and the Giants were one win away from clinching the NFC East, but they were losing early in the game to the Washington Redskins. They were struggling and things were tense until late in the first half when they were finally able to exhale in the offensive huddle.

Because Jeremy Shockey wasn’t around.

He had injured his ankle (while committing a pass interference penalty) and his backup, Visanthe Shiancoe, was forced onto the field.

“There were plays where (Shiancoe) was running free down the middle of the field (and) Shank would come back and say, ‘I think you had me, but don’t worry, we’ll get it,’” former Giants backup quarterback Tim Hasselbeck says in my new book, Eli Manning: The Making of a Quarterback. “If that’s Jeremy, he’s thinking ‘I just had a 60-yard touchdown that Eli didn’t throw to me. I’m pissed.’ Then he comes back saying, ‘I’m wide open!’”

Added one of their teammates, who preferred to remain anonymous: “There was a calm on the sidelines that was never there before.”

Scenes like that were played out far too frequently over the previous three years, ever since Jim Fassel and his tight-end-friendly offense were replaced by Tom Coughlin’s “tom-foolery” (which is how Shockey described some of his responsibilities in Coughlin’s scheme back in 2004). And while that’s not the reason why the Giants traded Shockey to the New Orleans Saints back in July, it’s a great example of why they’re better off that they did.

Shockey, as it turned out, was more of a disruptive force for the team and for Manning than anyone ever knew.

That should be clear to anyone who watched the Giants win a Super Bowl without him last season, after he broke his leg in Week 15, or to anyone who’s watched the Giants calmly avoid a Super Bowl hangover and get off to a 3-0 start in 2008. It’s not that they and their quarterback are better off without Shockey’s enormous talent – even Manning calls that a “stupid” theory.

It’s that they are both better off without his tired act.

Just look at what they were able to do in Weeks 2 and 3 of this season, when they struggled to put away inferior opponents. It was in situations like those, when the offense would be struggling to score points against teams they knew they should beat, that Shockey would be slamming his helmet, waving his arms, cursing at his teammates and demanding the ball.

Without him, when things get tough, the Giants can do what Manning does best – calmly analyze the situation, regroup, and get their act together. After they rallied to beat the Cincinnati Bengals in overtime in Week 3, even Plaxico Burress – an admitted ego-maniac who wants the ball all the time because he thinks he’s an unstoppable football force – talked about the patience the offense showed in waiting for their opportunities.

That’s something they often didn’t have the luxury to do during the Shockey years.

In fact, one Giants coach concedes that they were often forced to design plays for Shockey for the sole purpose of keeping him happy and quiet. That’s because Shockey still thought he was living in 2002, when then-GM Ernie Accorsi traded up in the first round to get him because Fassel wanted a Shannon Sharpe-like player to be the centerpiece of his offense. Accorsi talked about how Shockey was drafted to be a “weapon” and a “play-maker” not a tight end.

Coughlin wanted a tight end.

And you can see that in his offense since Shockey got hurt last year, and suddenly a healthy Steve Smith blossomed in the third-receiver role. The Coughlin/Kevin Gilbride scheme wants to rely on a strong running game and use three- and four-receiver sets to keep the defense off balance. They use the tight end – now primarily Kevin Boss – as a blocker first, and only occasionally sprinkle him in as a weapon in the passing game.

Shockey, in his years under Coughlin, averaged 4.2 catches per game. Since Shockey went down in Week 15 last year, Boss has averaged 1.3.

And Boss doesn’t complain the way Shockey did about the “tom-foolery” in the offense, or about how they were “out-coached” as Shockey said after a blowout loss in Seattle in 2006, or the way he complained to anyone who would listen all offseason long about how misunderstood and mistreated he was in New York. Boss doesn’t engage in shouting matches with the general manager. He’s not embarrassing the organization by discussing his party habits or sexual fantasies in magazine interviews.

And, perhaps most importantly, he’s not constantly yelling in his quarterback’s ear.

In other words, as Gilbride says in my book, when Shockey went down with his season-ending injury last year, “Some of the volatility was gone, so it made it a little easier.”

Under those conditions, since last Dec. 16, Manning has begun his ascent to the upper echelon of NFL quarterbacks.

And it can’t just be a coincidence that without Shockey, the Giants have gone 8-1.