Manning says his foot is fine

Giants’ QB Eli Manning has been dealing with a foot injury since Week 4 in Kansas City, and he has been telling us all along that it’s not an issue, that he’s fine, he feels fine, it’s not affecting his performance on the field.  And at times, we’ve had good reason to believe him, most notably last Sunday against the Falcons when Manning willed the G-men to victory with a career high 384 yards passing and 3 TDs. 

So it was a borderline shock yesterday when reports surfaced that Manning had an MRI which revealed a problem related to his plantar fasciitis  — that he basically had a stress reaction that could lead to a stress fracture.  Reports were that the Giants may have to shut Manning down for the season.  Say what?  Well, before I went and reported this as breaking news, I thought I’d let the real story surface.  So I am relying on the horse’s mouth, and what Manning had to say today on a conference call with reporters.

Basically, dude is fine…well, he says he is, so should we believe him?  He says he won’t be shut down for the season.  He says he has been annoyed by the time he’s had to put into treatment, time he’d rather spend breaking down film or practicing.  But other than that, he’s walking on the foot fine and it’s not affecting his play. 

Here are a few of the snippets from the call….

On battling the “stress reaction’: “…..it has been the same probably for the last three or four weeks. Nothing new, I feel like I can go out there in practice and do everything I need to do.”

On whether he might need surgery after the season: “Not that I know of, I don’t think so. I think it’s one of those things, with time and rest is probably the biggest thing. After having the weekend and the bye week has helped some. So having this past weekend to rest it is helpful. It’s not something that I think will linger or bother me.”

On whether or not the stress reaction hurts as much as the original injury:  “I don’t know if one hurts more than the other. In the games it doesn’t bother me, I don’t think about it. I am not overly concerned with it. Obviously this is kind of new news to you all but something that has been around and I have been playing with it for four weeks. It’s not something that is truly annoying me or bothering me and I don’t feel like it is affecting my performance on the field.”

And finally, about possiby being shut down for the season: “No, not concerned about that.”

Okay then.  I guess for now, we don’t have to worry about David Carr being the QB Sunday against Dallas.  Of course, I don’t think many of us in the media knew about the MRI Manning had until yesterday.  So we’ll just have to hope he’s okay to play Sunday, and assume he will, because at the end of the day, this guy has not missed a start yet.

Tags: Atlanta Falcons, Dallas Cowboys, David Carr, Eli Manning, Eli Manning foot injury, Eli Manning MRI, Eli Manning stress injury, Giants, MRI, plantar fasciitis, stress fracture, stress reaction