Ready for Dawkins Week?

Players and coaches are supposed to take things one game at a time.

We hear them say so pretty much every week.

But fans are allowed to look ahead.

And many of you have been looking ahead to Sunday, Dec. 27 for some time now.

It's the return of No. 20, Brian Dawkins, to Philadelphia.

The Broncos fell to the Raiders, 20-19, Sunday and sit at 8-6, battling for a wild-card spot in the AFC.

Eagles safety Quintin Mikell talked about what it's going to be like to welcome back one of his mentors next weekend.

"It's going to be really emotional, especially at the beginning of the game," he said. "I think that once the first hit happens, everything will go away. Once that first kickoff happens, it will all go away. Before the game, I'm sure it will be really emotional for all the fans, coaches, everybody. But at the end of the day, it's just 11 guys on that field and once we get to hitting and pounding, that's all that matters."

Donovan McNabb, who spent 10 seasons here with Dawkins, also talked about next weekend's game.

"The challenge of Brian is not him being out there and flying around and making plays," McNabb said. "I think for all of us it feels like it was just yesterday when he was here with us and Dawk is a guy with a lot of emotion and plays like it's his last. We'll be loooking at him like he's still wearing green, but the thing about he's on the other team and we'll have to go at him. I look forward to going at him and challenging him a little bit. I'm sure he's going to challenge us as well. We can't get caught up in the whole Dawk vs. us. It's the Broncos vs. the Eagles and we have to make sure we take care of what we have to."