In his most recent appearance in a championship game, Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeVonta Smith capped his Heisman Trophy season and an undefeated campaign for Alabama with 12 receptions for 215 yards and three touchdowns in a 52-24 victory over Ohio State in the CFP national title contest on Jan. 11, 2021.

On Sunday, Smith will line up for the Eagles against the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game. The winner of the contest advances to Super Bowl LVII.

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The 49ers almost got to the Super Bowl last season, when they lost to the Los Angeles Rams 20-17 in the NFC Championship Game.

San Francisco did reach the Super Bowl in the 2019 season, and 10 players who started for the 49ers in their 31-20 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in that NFL championship game remain on the team’s active roster, including former Davidson High School star Jimmie Ward.

The Eagles still have seven players on their active roster who were with the team when Philadelphia defeated the New England Patriots 41-33 in Super Bowl LII on Feb. 4, 2018, and former Super Bowl winners Linval Joseph and Ndamukong Suh joined the defensive-line depth during the 2022 regular season.

But the Eagles don’t match the 49ers’ depth of postseason experience, at least in the NFL. The Philadelphia roster does have 10 players from the five programs that have made the most appearances in the College Football Playoff, including Alabama alumni Smith, guard Landon Dickerson, quarterback Jalen Hurts and cornerback Josh Jobe. San Francisco has four players from those programs.

“Playing in big games, that’s why you want guys like that from those types of programs, because they’ve played in the biggest spotlight in college for the biggest prize,” Philadelphia coach Nick Sirianni said. “And we got a lot of guys on this team that have done that – DeVonta, Landon, Jalen, Jordan (Davis), Nakobe (Dean), Josh Jobe. I know I’m missing some. …

“Then obviously all the guys we have that had been on the Super Bowl team, with the (seven) guys that were on the 2017 team. Any time you’re playing in big games like that, that’s super helpful because, again, it’s not that you treat it any different — you’ve been in that scenario before. We got a lot of guys that have been in that scenario before.”

Smith’s performance against Ohio State in the CFP title game is an example of the big-game mentality that would be needed against the 49ers.

“It’s just who they are as players and who they are as people,” Sirianni said. “You hear all the time: He has ice water in his veins. Big-time players make big-time plays in big-time games. You hear that all the time.

“I think the cream rises to the top at the biggest moments, and so there’s no doubt it’s the talent that they have, the work that they put in for it. But it’s also their mentality of ‘Hey, I’m here, but I’m not treating this game any differently than I treated the last game. I’m treating this game with everything, like I treated the last game and everything I treated the game with before that. And I’m completely locked into the moment, and I’m not thinking about anything but how to do my job and how to make plays, and I’m not thinking about the magnitude of the game, the magnitude of the moment, what happened to me the play before, what’s going to happen to me the play after this.’

“They’re just locked in. I talk about that all the time with dog mentality. The best players, the best teams that I’ve been around – the best coaches I’ve been around – can be able to lock themselves into the moment they’re in and focus on the task at hand only.”

The 49ers and Eagles square off at 2 p.m. CST Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. FOX will televise the game.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.