PHILADELPHIA — Saquon Barkley consulted with his family last winter before the star running back decided, yes, it was time to leave the New York Giants — the only professional football home he had known over his first six NFL seasons — and sign with one of their NFC East Division rivals.
His youngest daughter, Jada, had one question for Barkley as he told her the family was headed to Philadelphia: “Does this mean Dad will win now?”
As Barkley lay on turf littered with confetti and cradled his daughter against his chest Sunday evening at Lincoln Financial Field, the answer was undeniable: You bet the 6-foot-3, 233-pound running back and the Philadelphia Eagles are going to win now — with a chance at the biggest victory of the season still ahead thanks to a Super Bowl date in two weeks at the Superdome in New Orleans.
Barkley dashed 60 yards for a touchdown on Philadelphia’s first snap of the NFC championship game and finished with 118 yards and three touchdowns rushing, quarterback Jalen Hurts added three scoring runs of his own, and the second-seeded Eagles used their ground attack to help them soar into Super Bowl LIX with a 55-23 win over the sixth-seeded Washington Commanders.
Hurts and the Eagles are in the Super Bowl for the second time in three seasons, and this time Barkley is along for the ride. The Eagles (17-3) get a rematch with the Kansas City Chiefs — led by former Philadelphia coach Andy Reid since 2012 — who beat them 38-35 two years ago, defeated the San Francisco 49ers in overtime at last season’s Super Bowl and are seeking an unprecedented third straight Lombardi Trophy.
The Chiefs (17-2), who were their conference’s No. 1 seed, secured their Super Bowl trip with a 32-29 home win against the second-seeded Buffalo Bills later Sunday night in the AFC title game. Super Bowl LIX is set for 6:30 p.m. Eastern on Feb. 9, with Fox televising the matchup.
“I came to Philly to be part of games like this,” Barkley said. “And there’s nothing better than a game where you can advance to the Super Bowl.”
The 55 points are the most any team has scored in a conference championship game since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger.
Hurts, wearing a brace on his left knee, also threw for 246 yards and a touchdown pass, and the Eagles had a towel-waving crowd in a frenzy at the Linc for the third playoff weekend in a row.
“I don’t want anybody else leading this team at quarterback other than him. He’s a winner,” coach Nick Sirianni said. “Again, he deals with so much criticism, which just blows my mind because of the questions I have to answer. I don’t look too much into that. The questions I have to answer it’s just like, ‘Man, this guy wins. He’s won his entire life.’”
A.J. Brown caught six passes for 96 yards and a touchdown — and faked tossing the NFC championship trophy off a platform — and a team that had been just 2-2 headed into its open date early in the regular season scored a season high in points to usher the franchise into its fifth Super Bowl seeking its second title.
The upstart Commanders (14-6) played a role in getting the NFC title game to Philadelphia with two straight road wins, a wild-card upset of the third-seeded Tampa Bay Buccaneers and last weekend’s stunner of the top-seeded Detroit Lions that left the Eagles as the highest remaining seed.
Jayden Daniels threw for 255 yards with one touchdown and one interception while falling short in his bid to become the first rookie quarterback to lead his team to the Super Bowl. The Commanders, who split the regular-season series with the Eagles (each won at home) were doomed by four turnovers, including a lost fumble by Austin Ekeler in the third quarter with the Commanders down 34-23.
“We believed that we belonged here,” Daniels said. “It was just another game for me. That’s how I treated it.”
The Eagles earned their only Super Bowl title to cap the 2017 season. Nick Foles, the quarterback in that game against the New England Patriots, was Philadelphia’s honorary captain for Sunday’s game, and the stadium crew cut to other stars from that Super Bowl in attendance on the big-screen videoboard.
Much as he has all season, Barkley led the way for the Eagles.
After the Commanders opened the game with an 18-play drive and a field goal that quieted a raucous crowd, Barkley got the fans going as soon as he touched the ball. Only the ninth running back to rush for 2,000 yards in an NFL regular season, Barkley took the pitch from Hurts and cut left, spun around a pair of defenders and took off on the touchdown run.
The Eagles recovered a fumble on the next drive, and Barkley added a 4-yard run — making him 2-for-2 on carries and touchdowns — for a 14-3 lead. Including the playoffs, Barkley extended an NFL record Sunday with his seventh rushing touchdown of 60-plus yards in a season.
“When he does it early, it doesn’t really matter who gets the party started, just for us to gain some momentum as an offense and gain a rhythm, keep going,” Hurts said.
Daniels, who had led the Commanders to six consecutive victories, made his share of big plays that included a 36-yard touchdown pass to Terry McLaurin that pulled them to 14-12.
“I had a lot of confidence in what we would do and how we would play,” first-year Commanders head coach Dan Quinn said.
Hurts, who hurt his knee when he was sacked last week by the Los Angeles Rams — and had missed the final two weeks of the regular season due to a concussion — had his best game yet in a postseason where the Eagles played all three games at home. He closed the first half with a tush-push 1-yard touchdown and threw a 4-yard scoring pass to Brown to send the Eagles into halftime with a 27-15 lead.
“I guess he let me out of my straitjacket a little bit today,” Hurts said of Sirianni’s offense.
Hurts secured the Super Bowl berth with another tush-push touchdown in the fourth quarter — after a humorous moment when an official said he woul award the Eagles six points if Washington defenders didn’t stop jumping offside — and his ninth career postseason rushing score gave them a 41-23 lead.
Small amounts of green confetti started to fly from the upper deck, and the countdown was officially on for the Super Bowl.
The Commanders’ desperate gasp at another late comeback win ended with a thud when Nolan Smith sacked Daniels on fourth down in the fourth quarter. Will Shipley gave Barkley a needed breather in the blowout and punched in a 2-yard touchdown run for a 55-23 lead.
The “E-A-G-L-E-S! Eagles!” chants began in earnest, and it’s sure to ring loud in New Orleans on Feb. 9: Barkley’s 28th birthday.