Eli Manning Leaves Practice with Illness, Sets Up for Heroism or the Perfect Excuse

Breathe, Giants fans.  It’s only Wednesday.  If Eli Manning is going to get sick with a stomach virus the week before the NFC Championship game, it might as well happen 100 hours before kickoff.  According to Ralph Vacchiano of the NY Daily News, Manning was unable to finish practice today with the Giants as he was suffering from what the team hopes is a 24-hour stomach bug.  Hopefully Eli can regain 100 percent health before the end of the week, but you can certainly expect to hear plenty more about it one way or another.

“You have to wonder if Eli is still feeling the effects of a stomach virus he was suffering from earlier in the week.”

“Manning just doesn’t appear to be himself today. As we all know, we was suffering from an illness during the week and unable to practice much.”

“What an incredibly heroic performance we saw today from Eli Manning after battling a stomach bug earlier in the week.”

These are just a few of the lines I can envision hearing from Joe Buck and Troy Aikman on Sunday evening from Candlestick Park.  I’m not downplaying the potential of the illness by any means, as very little is known at this point.  All I’m doing is simply warning you there’s a solid chance this emerges as the go-to storyline of the week.  There ain’t no story quite like an injury story the week before a big game.  An overcoming an illness/injury story has even more cinematic value.  A star quarterback overcoming an illness story — that has blockbuster film written all over it.