How Eli Manning is coping with his Giants QB days being numbered

No Giants player ever has worn the uniform for 16 seasons. This is the legacy of durability Eli Manning has achieved and the unprecedented loyalty the franchise has bestowed upon him.

There will never be another Eli Manning around these parts, though his replacement is here, waiting in the wings. And if there are the same sour notes of the past few seasons from Manning and his team, Daniel Jones will take the stage. There are not many firsts for someone on the scene as long as Manning, but what he is set to confront this summer is entirely new for him and his team. Jones will replace Manning. It is only a matter of when.

This makes the start of his 16th training camp familiar yet so strange.

“You deal with it,” Manning said Wednesday as the veterans reported for training camp. “Hey, I got a job to go out there and do my best. It doesn’t change. It hasn’t changed for 16 years, and it never will.”

His battle is with the defense, Manning insists, not with Jones. This is true, but also incomplete. He looks trimmer than ever and his boyish countenance belies his advanced age of 38. The Giants never came close to parting ways with Manning, but for the first time in his career he arrived at camp in the final year of his contract. There were always other quarterbacks sharing a meeting room and a lunch table, but never was one of them selected so high (No. 6 overall) as the hand-picked heir apparent.

Manning knows all this and said, “I can’t make that call I guess, necessarily,” when asked if he ever felt he might not be asked to return.

“I know I’m happy to be here, I know I’m blessed and I feel that,” he said. “Excited to be standing here today and playing for the New York Giants.”

It is a sign of the times that coach Pat Shurmur opened up camp and was hit with five questions about Jones before anyone asked him about Manning. Shurmur was on-board with taking Jones so high in the NFL Draft, and is unafraid, even eager, to pump up the 22-year old from Duke as a top-end prospect, someone capable of playing sooner rather than later.

“We really haven’t seen anything that he can’t do in terms of playing quarterback,” Shurmur said. “Now it’s just a matter of going out and doing it.”

Jones will not get the chance to do it right away, and how long he sits and waits is largely a byproduct of how effective Manning is with an offense devoid of Odell Beckham Jr. but with an improved offensive line and enough weapons to move the ball. Manning is always in peak shape, and he believes he is coming off an excellent offseason of weight training. He has learned how to handle long, hot summers, and understands his body and his limitations better now than ever.

“Taking more concern into arm maintenance and arm strength and stretching and keeping the muscles around the shoulder and rotator stuff all stronger,” he said. “I still feel my arm is very strong, can make all the throws, can get it out there, can make the long throws, the deep throws. I don’t feel I’ve had to adjust or change my game in any way.”

There are those who insist Manning has lost some life on his fastball and that this 16th season will not be kind to him or his team. Manning is never one to dwell on the big picture. He prefers the task at hand. When he says, “I try not to reflect much,” you can take him at his word.

He does understand his place within the Giants past and present, and knows it is nearing an end.

“The longevity of things, you have more appreciation,” Manning said. “You don’t know how long you get to play this or how long you get to do it. You are here and you don’t know what the future holds. I think when you’re younger, you just assume you’re going to keep playing. You don’t think about it. Now there is that mindset that you don’t know the future of things, which is fine. I think it makes you appreciate being here, and you want to take advantage and prepare more and be ready to take advantage of this opportunity.”