The clock is ticking on Eli Manning and the Giants getting a contract extension worked out, and the franchise quarterback came as close as he ever has to setting a deadline.

“I’m not a big fan of negotiations going on during the season,” Manning said Tuesday on WFAN. “I’m hoping if this thing is going to get done, it’s going to get done very quickly. I would think both sides would want to do it that way and not have these talks continue on.”

There’s not any time to spare. On Wednesday, the Giants begin their all-consuming preparation for the season opener against the Cowboys as the regular-season practice schedule takes hold.

Manning, 34, is set to make $17 million in 2015, entering the final year of a six-year, $97 million extension he signed before the 2009 season – a deal that briefly made him the league’s highest-paid player. Manning vehemently disputed a report recently that he is seeking to be the NFL’s highest-paid player. Of course, at the start of training camp in late July, Giants co-owner John Mara stated the team had made a “reasonable’’ offer and Manning’s agent, Tom Condon, was asking “for the moon.’’ Mara stressed Condon at some point would have to “come to his senses’’ in order to get a deal done.

The parameters of a new contract for Manning should not be difficult to formulate, given the template established by Ben Roethlisberger of the Steelers and Philip Rivers of the Chargers – the two other marquee quarterbacks in Manning’s 2004 NFL Draft class. Roethlisberger’s new contract averages $19.8 million ($60.75 million in guaranteed money) and Rivers comes in at $20.8 million ($65 million guaranteed).

“I don’t compare myself with other quarterbacks by their salary and by their contract,” Manning said not long after the ink was dry on Rivers’ deal.

“I’ve been blessed to play in this league this many years and still blessed to play this year. I’m going to do my job, that’s all I can concern myself with.’’

The Giants want Manning to retire a Giant and he wants to remain. The team can put the franchise tag on him in 2016 and again in 2017, preventing Manning from becoming a free agent until 2018.

There’s been some talking, but my focus is still on the Cowboys,’’ Manning said. “I’m not going to make that a distraction.”