The pain is contained to the foot for now, which is a good thing for both the Giants and the quarterback. Because Eli Manning’s shoulder needs to be sound, and it needs to be strong, and not merely to ensure that his spirals can slice through the frosty Meadowlands air this Sunday.
No, the Giants are a team in need of more than Manning’s skills now. They need his strength. They need him to shoulder more of a load than he’s ever been asked to carry if they are to somehow negotiate their way to the end of the season without being stranded like roadkill on the path to the playoffs.
“When I’m playing the games,” Manning said yesterday, “I’m not thinking about it. I’m not worrying about it.”
He was talking about his right foot, the one that’s been haunted by plantar fasciitis most of the year, the one freshly-diagnosed as suffering from a “stress reaction,” which is sometimes a preview for a stress fracture and is always a synonym for “not 100 percent healthy.”
Manning has soldiered on since the pain arrived, which has never been an issue for him — he is as tough as any quarterback we’ve ever seen around here.
No one has ever questioned Manning’s resilience. And since he marched the Giants down the field one magical February Sunday nearly two years ago, no one has ever said the Giants’ quarterback isn’t capable of delivering forever moments. We’ve seen him do it. We saw him elude the rush that culminated in David Tyree’s catch. We saw him find Plaxico Burress in the end zone. All of that is on the resume.
Now the Giants need something else. They need Manning to more closely resemble the quarterback he was through the first 12 weeks of last season, and the first five weeks of this season, and every playoff week out of January 2008.
There are a dozen things wrong with the Giants right now, starting with their record (6-5) and their standing in the NFC East (third) and their position in the wild-card race if the season ended today (o-u-t). But the season doesn’t end today. There are five games to go, meaning there are five opportunities for the Giants to rediscover their soul, reacquire their confidence, re-position themselves in the NFL playoff tournament. As much as they’ve struggled since the start of October they are still in a far better place than the Jets because they still command their own destiny, won’t rely on the kindness of strangers.
Asked yesterday to rate his optimism on a scale of one to 10, Justin Tuck said: “Eleven.” Asked how that could be given the team’s current plight, Tuck simply said: “Call me ignorant or foolish, but that’s the only way I know how to approach this.”
And it is the only way the Giants, and their quarterback, can approach this week, an all-in showdown with the Cowboys looming late Sunday afternoon. It has to be galling to the Giants that they sit two games in arrears of Dallas, a team whose home opener they ruined in September, a team that sometimes looks like it plays offense blindfolded. In September, it felt like these teams occupied different football classes.
And still does. Just not the way it seemed in September. The Giants have one chance to rearrange that perception. It arrives in five days.
“There’s got to be a sense of urgency,” Manning said. “We don’t have time to figure it out slowly, hope we can become a better team eventually and take strides.” Against the Falcons nine days ago, they mostly proved Manning correct. Against the Broncos five days ago, they looked like a team who had been introduced 10 minutes before kickoff. All of that can still be prelude, but the quarterback is right on. They don’t have time to figure it out. Manning doesn’t have time to get healthy. If it’s going to happen, it has to happen now.
For the team. And for the quarterback.