PHILADELPHIA — By the final minutes of the fourth quarter, the white rally towels feverishly waved by crazed Eagles fans gave way to a white flag waved by a helpless Commanders defense. 

Saquon Barkley ran for three touchdowns and Jalen Hurts ran for three and threw for another to A.J. Brown as the Eagles punched their ticket Sunday to Super Bowl LIX with the highest-scoring output in NFC Championship game history, in a 55-23 victory at Lincoln Financial Field. 

Eight touchdowns on their first 11 possessions sent the Eagles to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years and a date against the Chiefs. 

“It just feels like we were supposed to do this,” linebacker Zack Baun said after forcing a fumble and recovering another for a defense that collected four turnovers. “You have to keep your foot on the gas, especially in the playoffs.” 

The crowd of 69,879 chanted “M-V-P” at Barkley after he scored touchdowns on his first two carries of the game — a preview of how unstoppable the 229-yard rushing attack would be — and gave a full-throated “Fly, Eagles, Fly” serenade after his third touchdown was part of 21 unanswered fourth-quarter points. 

It took 18 seconds for Barkley to erase six years of frustration when he had a dazzling cutback run to pay dirt on the Eagles’ first offensive snap. The Giants’ decision to let Barkley leave in free agency was their contribution to Sunday’s all-NFC East matchup. 

“The dream wasn’t just getting there,” Barkley said of the Super Bowl. “The dream was about winning it, so that’s the mindset we have.” 

Barkley’s NFL record seventh rushing touchdown of 60 yards or longer this season put the Eagles in front 7-3 and was the perfect answer to the Commanders’ game-opening 18-play drive. He fought through left calf tightness on the way to 15 carries for 118 yards. 

“Good tone-setter, right?” head coach Nick Sirianni said. “We knew they were going to sell out to stop the run. Then he breaks two or three tackles. If Saquon gets into the second level, third level, now it’s, ‘Hey, can you tackle this guy?’ ” 

Playing with a right knee injury that had him considering wearing a brace until kickoff, the much-criticized Hurts made big throws to get to 246 passing yards, spun and hopped away from sacks, and ran for a 9-yard touchdown on top of his two 1-yard scores via the Tush Push. 

“We always talk about eliminating the outside noise, but I know he hears that,” left tackle Jordan Mailata said. “I think he plays his best when he feels people doubt him. And he does stuff like he did today.” 

Hurts described his week leading up to the game as “challenging, in some ways exhausting,” but he looked again like the MVP candidate he was during the 2022 Super Bowl run under Sirianni. He lit a victory cigar in the locker room to prove it. 

“I guess [Sirianni] let me out of my straight jacket a little bit today,” Hurts quipped. 

The rubber match between rivals got heated after the whistle at times. But the Eagles ultimately broke the Commanders’ will in a familiar way — with the unstoppable Tush Push. 

After linebacker Frankie Luvu committed the second of three straight encroachment penalties, referee Shawn Hochuli warned the Commanders that he could award a touchdown for deliberately taking penalties to avoid a score. When the snap finally happened, Hurts pushed across the goal line for a 41-23 lead. 

The greatest rookie quarterback season of all time ended with little fault to Jayden Daniels, who combined for 303 yards and two touchdowns with his arm and legs. But he saw his teammates lose three fumbles before his lone interception once the game was out of reach. 

“We believed we belonged here,” Daniels said after becoming the sixth rookie quarterback to lose a conference championship game in six tries. “I don’t want to have a feeling like this again, but you have to deal with it and move on from there.” 

As big a difference as Barkley made, Brown put down the book he was reading on the sideline as an uninvolved part of the offense earlier in the playoffs and wrote a new chapter with six catches for 96 yards, including a big 31-yard, fourth-down conversion when the game was still tight (14-12). 

In a matter of 65 seconds, Brown got into veteran cornerback Marshon Lattimore’s head to start a heated altercation and a 14-12 lead had ballooned to 27-12 on the way to 27-15 at the half on the way to a second-half laugher. 

Playing with house money as the party crasher to the NFL’s Final Four, the Commanders gambled frequently with three early fourth-down conversions, including on a fake punt. 

But those bold moves only resulted in six points — two conversions happened on the Commanders’ seven-minute game-opening drive — and were not enough to overcome four turnovers, a missed two-point conversion and drive-extending penalties that fueled the Eagles. 

“These guys are hungry,” Sirianni said, “and we’ve got one more to go.”