It is the toughest question in sports. When, exactly, is the right time to walk away from a game that has defined an athlete’s life? When, exactly, is the moment at which it is clear that there is not one more ounce of magic to be wrung from his or her body? And what if, heaven forbid, another victory or championship is left on the table?

It may seem that Eli Manning is facing an uncertain future as his 15th season in the NFL comes to an end and he prepares for what may or may not be his final game Sunday with the New York Giants but, like most athletes, he doesn’t want to talk about it.

“I don’t know,” was his response to reporters when he was asked if he’d be the Giants’ quarterback in 2019. “I have not gotten into that, or thought much about that. Just worried about doing my job and finishing this season.”

For Manning, Sunday’s regular-season finale is just that: the last game of the season. He expects to start against the Cowboys. And finish.

“I view it as the last game of this season and that’s it,” he told reporters.

According to Manning, there have been no conversations about extending his contract or reworking it. His 2019 salary cap hit is $23.2 million (via NJ.com) in the last year of a four-year extension he signed in 2015. It’s 10th-highest among NFL quarterbacks, according to overthecap.com, and has a no-trade clause. The Giants would save $17.2 million against the cap and take on $6 million in dead money by cutting Manning, an unthinkable prospect given how he emerged from an upheaval that resulted in coaching and front-office housecleaning.

Manning has won two Super Bowls, but the Giants, who are 5-10, have missed the playoffs in six of the last seven years. His successor isn’t on the horizon, with the Giants choosing to spend their 2018 No. 2 overall draft pick on running back Saquon Barkley, but Manning knows that is likely to change. Especially since he’ll turn 38 on Jan. 3.

“We’ll handle all of that after the season,” Manning said.

Like all stubbornly confident athletes, he has faith in his own ability to know when it will be time to quit. The first half of the season was dismal for him; his performance improved over the second half (11 touchdowns, four interceptions in seven games since the Giants’ bye). Perhaps enough to encourage him. “I think you know when it’s done or when your body can’t do it, or you can’t stay healthy or you can’t make the throws,” Manning told Newsday’s Bob Glauber. “So, I still feel strong. I think I can still play and still make the throws and run an offense and win football games.”

Hall of Famers like Joe Montana, Dan Marino and Steve Young were finished at the age of 38. Today, Drew Brees (40 next month) and Tom Brady (42 in August) are still playing – and hope to keep going. Eli’s older brother came as close as anyone to getting it right when it comes to the perfect walk-off. With his skills in evident decline during the 2015 season, Peyton Manning was playing on a Denver Broncos team with a stellar defense and it, rather than he, won Super Bowl 50.

And with that, he was gone.

“I fought a good fight,” Peyton Manning said in announcing his retirement just weeks before his 40th birthday in March 2016. “I finished my football race, and after 18 years, it’s time.”

Brady, whose Pats are headed for the postseason next month, has shown signs of a drop-off, even though he has said he wants to keep playing. Willie McGinest, his former teammate, said last summer that he thought Brady might quit if New England were to win the Super Bowl.

“I think there will be a walk-off, if he wins this year, a Super Bowl,” McGinest said. “I think this: It won’t be 45 years old. I think he’ll walk off and say, ‘The game has been amazing to me and now I am going to figure something else out.'”

Eli Manning, at least publicly, isn’t ready to tip his hand about the future.

“I’ve never thought about, I want to play this many more years or that many more years,” he told Glauber. “That just never came up. . . . We’ll figure it all out next year.”

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