Eli Manning stands as the franchise quarterback poster boy for that oft-repeated NFL maxim that the best ability is availability. If there were a New York Football Giants game scheduled, ’Ole Once A Giant Only A Giant showed up and played.

It endeared him to his teammates, to Tom Coughlin, to John Mara and Steve Tisch, and of course to Giants fans.

So this was Robert Saleh, moments after he dropped the bombshell only 48 hours after singing a more optimistic public tune that Zach Wilson will now be watching Joe Flacco Sunday against the Ravens and through all of September at the very least:

“I really don’t want to talk about the situation anymore. The earliest he’s gonna be available is Pittsburgh, that’s gonna be the earliest.”

At which time, the potential will exist for a Catch-2: What if the 37-year-old pilot of Flight 2022 navigates through the early-season turbulence and lands the Jet safely?

“Zach’s our future,” Saleh said.. “When Zach’s healthy, he’s rolling.”

Here’s the unsettling problem:

Zach can’t stay healthy. He had difficulty staying healthy at BYU, has difficulty staying healthy now.

It means that Zach, who missed four games in 2021 with a sprained PCL on this same right knee, will confront a crossroads imperative whenever he is cleared by the doctors to return: He simply cannot afford another injury that would shelve him again and cause the organization to begin to seriously wonder about his durability and even about whether he is the right man for the job.

He must show that he can stay on the field.

“Yeah of course, I mean, you never plan to go out there and get injured,” Wilson said, “so the goal of course is to just try to put myself in good situations … try and get myself out of bad situations.”

He will be watching Flacco because he put himself in a bad situation trying to atone for a grievous preseason interception by cutting inside a defender instead of taking the profit.

“I don’t think I’ll play any differently,” Wilson said. “People can say, ‘You should have gotten out of bounds, you should have slid, but I mean, it was a non-contact injury, the guy didn’t tackle me. If the guy hit me and I got injured, that’s one thing. … I gotta take care of myself and put myself in a better situation there and sometimes unfortunate stuff like that just happens.”

Unfortunate stuff like that happens when the lionhearted cannot tame the raging fire inside, and at least he acknowledged a few minutes later that perhaps discretion is sometimes the better part of valor. And for his sake, he ought to abandon any hint of macho ball.

“Kinda like in that preseason game, it was unfortunate because I didn’t get hit, but there is times where you can get yourself out of trouble, and slide, get out of bounds,” Wilson said, “not do something stupid.”

The young Phil Simms wore an injury-prone tag before overcoming two shoulder separations, one knee injury and one compound fracture-dislocation of a thumb in his sixth season. He admitted that he “pressed so hard” when he got back on the field.

“Some things happen where you just get bad luck and he just needs a string of good luck,” Saleh said. “It’ll come.”

Positive vibes only: Wilson is throwing. “He looks fantastic … he’s not walking with a limp or anything,” Saleh said.

The Jets are right for playing it safe with their young franchise quarterback.

“It’s not worth the risk. There’s the knee element, there’s the mind element, there’s the practice element,” Saleh said.

That’s a lot of elements. The element of surprise for the Ravens was never realistic. Asked when he was ruled out for Week 1, Wilson said coyly: “When did Saleh say that, today?”

Yup.

“I actually feel I’m in a great spot,” Wilson said.

He’ll be in a better spot when the bone bruise is healed and he can play uninhibited and unencumbered again.

“I don’t feel like it’s gonna be something that bothers me,” Wilson said.

So the message goes like this:

Get well.

Then stay well.

Your future is still now. Give your franchise, your coaches, your teammates and your fans a 14-game season.