Manning, who injured his heel last weekend, has started 82 straight games, but he was held out of practice on Wednesday. The injury is painful enough that Manning is skeptical about whether or not he’ll be well enough to help the team on Sunday instead of hurting it.
“If I feel like I can go out and play at a high level and help the team and do everything I can do, and they don’t have to limit the game plan or say you can’t do this or that, I’ll go out there and play,” Manning told ESPN.com. “I’m not going to do anything that will put myself in harm for making this worse down the road.”
Manning told the Web site that the pain in his foot was so intense on Sunday that at times, he had to hop instead of walking. He said the pain has decreased slightly over the past few days and he hopes it will dull enough to allow him to play this weekend. He definitely doesn’t want to disrupt the rhythm he’s been in.
“I feel like I have been practicing well and playing good football and been in a rhythm the last couple of weeks,” he said. “You don’t want to go out there when you are injured and you can’t do everything you want to do and move the way you want, and all of a sudden you get bad habits and bad mechanics and you’re throwing the ball differently.”
Even if Manning misses practice, Giants head coach Tom Coughlin has faith that he’ll be just fine come Sunday.
“He will know everything,” Coughlin said. “While he is in here today [receiving medical treatment], he will have a machine in front of him. His tape time will probably be as good or maybe more than a normal week. Yeah, he will study hard.”
