For the run-loving Eagles, the NFC Championship Game turning point came through the air

The running game dominated once again, but the most important play of the day was a pass.

55 points.

The Philadelphia Eagles, a team for whom a trip to the Super Bowl once seemed an annual Sisyphean pipe dream, dropped 55 points on the Washington Commanders en route to their second NFC Championship Game blowout win in three years.

It happened.

Saquon Barkley really did rip off 60-yard touchdown run on their first offensive play of the game. Remember Wilbert Montgomery’s legendary touchdown at the start of the 1980 NFC title game against the Cowboys? Same vibes.

Barkley with three total touchdowns. Jalen Hurts with three on the ground, two via the Tush Push (I guess the Brotherly Shove didn’t really catch on, huh?). Will Shipley with a garbage time monster run and touchdown. The Eagles piled up 229 total yards on the ground, setting an NFC Championship Game record for points scored and rushing touchdowns (7). They forced, and recovered, three fumbles and hauled in an interception.

The Eagles stuck to their identity for much of Sunday’s glorious victory, but as Jalen Hurts noted after the game, it’s clear Kellen Moore opened up the playbook and took the straitjacket off Hurts and the passing game. Hurts threw for 246 yards on 20-28 passing, good for a 110.1 rating. In fact, in the game’s most important moment, it was the Birds’ ability to throw the football that provided the turning point in the game.

The Eagles’ 32-point margin of victory was certainly indicative of the talent disparity between the two teams, especially as Washington made uncharacteristic mistakes and the Eagles took full advantage of them in the second half. But for most of the first half, this was an uncomfortable ballgame.

With 2:14 left before halftime, the offense was driving and had the ball on the WAS46. It was 14-12, with Washington having just scored on a long Terry McLaurin touchdown, albeit with a failed two-point conversion. The Commanders had some momentum, and after an incomplete pass to Barkley, Hurts and Nick Sirianni were faced with a 4th and 5 decision.

They could have punted and tried to pin Jayden Daniels and the offense inside the 10, but with two minutes and a full complement of timeouts, there’s every reason to believe Daniels could have at least driven them into field goal range. Plus, it would have been a coward’s move. Instead, the Eagles decided to go for it, which was the correct decision, but carried significant risk.

Should they have failed to convert 4th-and-5 from the 46, Daniels would have been left with a short field and plenty of time to take a lead, as well as all the momentum, into halftime. Instead, the Eagles turned to a passing game that had been forgotten by the side of the road for most of the last three months of the season in favor of their big-play running game.

With single coverage on the outside against struggling veteran Marcus Lattimore, A.J. Brown beat Lattimore off the line and Hurts dropped in a beautiful ball down the sideline that Brown hauled in seamlessly, like the two have done dozens of times over the years. Just like that, the Eagles had a first down from the WAS14, which they would turn into another Tush Push touchdown and a 20-12 lead.

The Eagles’ special teams forced a turnover on the ensuing kickoff, Hurts hit Brown on a beautiful 4-yard TD throw with 39 seconds left to make it a 27-12 game, and a once-tense affair was on its way to becoming a rout.

Barkley’s opening TD run set the tone and will be the play we all remember 20 years from now, and the seven rushing touchdowns certainly fueled the Eagles’ offense, but it was Hurts and Brown hopping into the way-back machine and connecting on the most important play of the game that was the turning point that sent the Birds to Super Bowl 59.