Manning knows this may be final season with Giants

Eli Manning NEW YORK — reported to training camp with the Giants for the 16th time on Wednesday. Sixteenth and final time? Manning recognizes that it is a possibility. Maybe even a strong one. He’ll be 39 years old when this season is over, he’s in the last year of his contract with the Giants, and he’ll spend the rest of his career with the team trying to keep a step ahead of sixth overall draft pick Daniel Jones, who was brought in to replace him.

So yeah, the veteran quarterback who has seen it all, from euphoria to indignity, is taking some time this summer to absorb as much as he can of the experience of being a Giant. If for no other reason than that at this point next year, he might not be.

“I think the longevity of things, you have more appreciation,” he said of feeling “blessed” (a word he has not used much in the past) to be back for 2019. “You don’t know how long you get to play this or how long you get to do it … You don’t know what the future holds. When you are younger you assume you are going to keep playing, you just assume you’ll be back playing and you don’t think about it. Now there is that mindset that you don’t know kind of the future of things. Which is fine. I think that makes you appreciate being here and want to take advantage and prepare more and be ready to take advantage of this opportunity.”

That’s not to say that Manning is in a reflective mood. Just more aware of how fragile it is and how unique his tenure with the team has been. No one, after all, has ever suited up for a 16th season with the Giants.

And when Manning does trot down memory lane, thinking about his two Super Bowls and the indelible mark he has left on the franchise — not to mention its record books — he uses it to focus more on the present than the past.

“I think about the players we have on this team, I want those guys to experience some of the successes we’ve had here with the Giants in the past,” he said.