It could not happen organically because, well, no one wanted it.
Not Pat Shurmur. Not ownership. And, first and foremost, not Eli Manning.
“Never came up,’’ Manning said Wednesday, a silenced voice suddenly awakened and audible, a sure sign something — a really big thing — is amiss in Giants World.
No, it never came up. No discussion whatsoever about giving the 38-year-old a courtesy final start down the stretch of this dreary season, a farewell at MetLife Stadium to send him off the right way.
The right way is not seeing Eli Manning in a baseball cap, on the sideline, looking grim and in need of a shave, a bystander as the final embers of his career flicker, turn to smoke and then dissipate forever.