Turning Up the Heat

It’s as if high school graduation week broke out here the last few days.

It seems as if good-byes are being said, farewell notes are being written in the yearbook, as if the future is the great unknown.

“The window is closing,” Philadelphia Eagle cornerback Troy Vincent said. “We want to seize the moment, maximize the moment. Because it’s probably the last moment for this group of guys.”

Today at Lincoln Financial Field, the Eagles (13-4) will play for the NFC championship against the Carolina Panthers (13-5). This is the third straight year the Eagles have been one win away from the Super Bowl, and several key players seem almost melancholy.

Vincent and Bobby Taylor, cornerbacks who have played side by side for eight years, and running back Duce Staley, who is finishing his seventh season as an Eagle, are free agents after this season.

Eagle Coach Andy Reid’s unsentimental preference has been to let free agents older than 30 move on.

Vincent is 32. Taylor is 30. Staley, 29, angered Reid with a contentious preseason holdout. Each has said he doesn’t expect to be an Eagle next year. Each has said he understood the realities of the NFL.

“This team is almost luckier than most,” Vincent said. “We’ve had three opportunities in three years. It just doesn’t happen that way in this era of free agency.”

The underlying current in this city and among the Eagles is of nervous anticipation.

Maybe Carolina running back Stephen Davis will make a mysterious, miraculous recovery from his leg injury and gain 150 yards, or maybe he won’t and DeShaun Foster will get the start and baffle the Eagles with his fresh legs and subtle speed and gain 150 yards.

The Eagle defense has been run on, through and over most of the season. There is reason for the Panthers to be optimistic.

And the way the Panthers kept Davis hidden all week, having him work out in private Friday for the first time since he left the Jan. 10 divisional playoff game against St. Louis in the first quarter, has left the Eagles wondering what’s up. Davis strained his left quadriceps, but Foster came in to gain a career-high 95 yards.

They are different runners, Davis being a little slower but more powerful and better suited to the clumpy, frozen grass at Lincoln Financial. But Foster, the former UCLA star in his second NFL season, was impressively quick last week. Carolina Coach John Fox says Foster is finally comfortable in Carolina’s offense.

“I don’t want to slight Davis because he’s a Pro Bowl back,” Eagle safety Brian Dawkins said. “He’s a guy who can get the first down with speed and with power. But Foster is a little faster, maybe a little more elusive. So there is a difference.”

Or maybe Panther quarterback Jake Delhomme will continue making first-time memories and eye-widening magic and join once-unknown quarterbacks such as Kurt Warner and Tom Brady by taking his unheralded team to the Super Bowl.

In their second season under Fox, the Panthers gained confidence, and Fox credited Delhomme’s field presence for making a big difference this season.

Or maybe the Eagles will be unable to re-create the yardage Brian Westbrook contributed when they beat the Panthers, 25-16, in November at Ericsson Stadium. Westbrook, who ruptured his triceps in the last regular-season game, ran for 64 yards against Carolina and caught five passes for 32 yards.

Said Carolina receiver Muhsin Muhammad: “After that last Philly game, everyone felt like, ‘Man I wish we could get an opportunity to play that game over.’ And now we get an opportunity to do that.”

Vincent and Taylor, who endured two last-place finishes as Eagles, celebrated the three straight NFC title games and anguished over the two championship losses, are also looking forward to the opportunity.

Taylor, a Pro Bowl selection for the first time in 2002, missed nine games this year because of a foot injury and returned in the Carolina game. Vincent has been named to five straight Pro Bowl teams even though he missed the final two regular-season games (and last week’s victory over Green Bay) because of a hip injury.

Vincent is expected to play today. He thinks about how it will feel to play what could be the last Eagle home game for him and Taylor.

“This is going to be our last trip together coming out of the tunnel to our fans, so let’s make it special for them,” Vincent said. “Let’s make it worthwhile. It’s been an awesome ride and what better way to end it than a trip to the Super Bowl.”

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Associated Press contributed to this report.