Little-used Shockley is Mr. Popularity

A rainy Monday practice finished, D.J. Shockley was the last player standing on the artificial landscape of the Falcons’ indoor facility. He had one bit of extra throwing to do.

For a guy astride the thin film of the NFL roster bubble, it’s never a bad idea to do some soft-toss networking with the general manager.

So, for a few minutes, he and Thomas Dimitroff had a friendly catch, just the two of them inside that big, empty hanger.

The boss doesn’t have bad hands, Shockley reported back. Threw some funny looking balls, though —- but the less made of that, the better.

Everybody likes Shockley. Coaches, teammates, new front-office people, anybody with a University of Georgia plate on their vehicle.

“I try to explain to people after he first got here how his [Falcons] jersey sales were so high even though he hardly ever played, except for the preseason,” said Shockley’s teammate with the Bulldogs and Falcons, linebacker Tony Taylor. “His fan base is ridiculous.”

“To be popular is a good thing,” Shockley said, shrugging. Beats the alternative.

Tonight is the Falcons’ final exhibition game, at Baltimore. It will be Shockley’s only appreciable action since blowing out his left knee in the 2007 preseason. He will attempt to lock up a final spot on the roster and keep that fan base at peace.

To everyone else, this final exhibition game is the most forgettable of the lot, one in which the front-line players are put on ice while impatiently awaiting the real thing. For Shockley, it’s his one chance to make his case in the competition for a seat in Matt Ryan’s shadow.

“It’s huge. Any game I get in is huge,” Shockley said. “Any time I get any plays is huge. I’m looking at it as an opportunity to go out and help this team. I’m looking forward to a lot of time on the field to get the chance to interact with a lot of the guys and just play.”

According to coach Mike Smith’s design, Ryan will take the first few snaps, leaving the bulk of the night to Shockley. He was a never-used intern as a seventh-round draft pick in 2006 and, because of his injury, had no opportunity to fill the Michael Vick void last season.

Probably in no other NFL city is the battle for the No. 3 quarterback spot followed so keenly. Debate over the merits of Shockley’s potential versus the known abilities of Joey Harrington and Chris Redman is regular radio talk-show grist. Whether the Falcons should be a Shockley absorber is a hot-button topic on a team with otherwise few of them.

His popularity flows from so many precincts. Georgia fans have long appreciated the way Shockley calmly waited his turn behind David Greene, when he might have stirred up Bering Sea-sized waves. Finally, getting to start his senior season (going 10-3 in 2005), Shockley rallied the Bulldogs around him. “You ask anyone on offense or defense on that team, they all wanted to play for him,” said Mike Bobo, now the Bulldogs’ offensive coordinator. “He never said one negative word, and I think that paid off.”

Yes, Bobo plans to be among those who will tune into a little Falcons preseason football tonight —- “I’ll be watching the quarterback and cheering for him,” he said.

Shockley is live-armed and local, from College Park. And in the aftermath of the Vick debacle, which so often seemed to break down along racial lines, he is the lone African-American quarterback on the roster.

Asking a person why he is well-liked is the ultimate softball question, and Shockley is happy to catch it.

“I do [have a sense of my popularity], even with my own teammates,” Shockley said. “There always are a lot of guys coming up to me during a game asking me, ‘When are you going to play, when are you going to get in?’ Just wishing me well.

“That’s good when guys you play with have so much confidence in you they want to see you play. On the field, to get the huge ovation you get, to see how many people are supporting you, it feels great.”

Shockley does not indulge the race angle —- “Not at all; it’s more who can get the job done,” he said.

So many different sets of eyes will be trained on Shockley tonight. Not the least of which are those of his teammates.

“I’m a fan of his,” Taylor said, speaking for a lot of people. “As soon as he steps out there, I’m locked in on him.”

How must he respond?

“He’s going to have to go out and run the offense and move the chains,” Smith said. “I think he’s going to get an opportunity to do it with our first offensive group, and I think and hope it’s going to be against Baltimore’s first.

“We want to see production and efficiency with our offense when he’s out there, like all our quarterbacks.”

NEXT FOR FALCONS

> Who: at Ravens (exhibition)

> When: 7 p.m. today

> TV; radio: WATL; 92.9 FM