Jalen Hurts keeps winning, or the Eagles won in spite of him; either way, is it postseason-sustainable?

It was, in many ways, a quintessential Jalen Hurts performance.

Detractors will say the Eagles beat the Packers in spite of the quarterback. Advocates will say he did enough to win and that is all that mattered. There was more than enough in the 22-10 wild card victory on Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field for each side to make their argument.

But that the Eagles were able to advance in the playoffs, despite the inefficiency of Hurts and their pass offense, once again spoke to the potency of Saquon Barkley and the run game and a defense that forced the other quarterback into throwing three interceptions.

This was, for the most part, the recipe that won the NFC East and 14 games. So it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that the Eagles needed to cook that dish up again, especially with Hurts missing time with a concussion and coach Nick Sirianni giving the starters off in the season finale a week ago.

It was more than enough even if the taste was bitter at times. The Eagles took a step further than they did a season ago — and Hurts won for the first time in the first round after two previous tries — and that is to be celebrated.

“That doesn’t matter,” Hurts said when asked if style points count in the postseason. “It’s all about winning. That’s the only thing we’ve got to the point we are. So, it’s about finding ways to win.”

» READ MORE: Eagles grades: An opportunistic defense wore down the Packers in a wild-card win

But it’s about winning championships, and while that may sound about as trite as all the adages coaches and players spew on a weekly basis, the Eagles still feel like a team just waiting for the opportunity to finish what they came so close to savoring two years ago — and that’s winning a Super Bowl.

The question then becomes: Can they win it behind a defense-slash-run-heavy-offense formula?

“Whether we throw for 400 yards, we rush for 400 yards, or we win, 3-0, I don’t give a [bleep], to be honest,” said Barkley, who’s never advanced further than the divisional round of the playoffs. “I just want to win. I think that’s the mindset for the team. I know that’s the mindset for the team.”

It’s been done before in the modern NFL. The 2015 Broncos spring to mind. And there have been other teams with strong defenses and robust run offenses that have won Super Bowls over the last 20 years or so. But having a dynamic quarterback and pass offense increases the odds of winning more than almost any other variable.

That doesn’t mean Hurts and the Eagles can’t get it done that way. That’s pretty much how they got as far as they did in 2022. Just last month, it was the passing game that shouldered the offensive load in topping the Steelers.

But there have been far more outings like Sunday than the opposite with Hurts struggling to see the field, waffling under pressure and holding the ball too long. The Packers defense deserves credit, of course, and the offensive fault doesn’t fall solely on the quarterback.

Coordinator Kellen Moore could have done a better job of getting Hurts acclimated, and the other 10 Eagles on the field had hiccups, as well. But for the greater part of the first three quarters, the Eagles offense was impotent.

“It was execution. It was rhythm,” Hurts said. “We have to find our rhythm earlier in the game. First and foremost, our defense played their tails off. They played their tails off and created turnovers. And I think, ultimately, when you have those opportunities, you have to take advantage of them, and that starts with me.”

» READ MORE: Zack Baun and the Eagles defense save the day as Jalen Hurts struggles

A 4-0 margin in turnover differential — a forced fumble on the opening kick gave the Eagles their first takeaway — should have been more than enough. But after scoring a touchdown off the first turnover, the offense stalled.

During one stretch, Hurts went 0 for 7 passing and was sacked twice on his drops. On one play, the Packers went from a single-high safety pre-snap look to two deep and Hurts moved quickly off his first read and out of the pocket before throwing a dirt ball at tight end Dallas Goedert’s feet

On the second sack he took, he was hesitant when he should have just thrown the ball away. Sacks are better than turnovers and Hurts again didn’t force the issue like counterpart Jordan Love did on several occasions.

“I don’t think we had the game that we wanted to have on offense, but Jalen, I think, did a lot of good things,” Sirianni said. “First of all, Jalen is a winner. He wins. No one can argue that. … Jalen’s on this pace of the efficiency that he’s played with this year with his quarterback rating, with his yards per attempt, and all those different things, to be able to do that while also taking care of the football is huge.”

Hurts ended up completing 13 of 21 passes for 131 yards and two touchdowns. The first score was a beauty with the quarterback standing in the pocket for 6.75 seconds before receiver Jahan Dotson broke free for a 7-yard catch in the back of the end zone. Hurts reset his feet and looked primed to take off, but he settled behind the sustained blocking of his offensive line.

“That was kind of a scramble from within the pocket,” Hurts said.

» READ MORE: The 7 seconds that showed why the Eagles are a strong bet for the Super Bowl

On the second touchdown pass, Hurts checked to a screen to Goedert when the Packers showed an all-out blitz pre-snap. The pass was slightly behind the tight end, and he did the rest with a couple of stiff arms on the way to the 24-yard score.

But it wasn’t until Moore dialed up a play-action bootleg two plays earlier in which Hurts found a wide open DeVonta Smith for a 28-yard gain that it seemed the Eagles abandoned the idea of favoring passes with first reads on downfield routes.

“I think it’s something that we didn’t really show a lot,” said Smith, who caught 4 of 4 targets for 55 yards, said. “So [the Packers] kind of didn’t know what to expect.”

It was impossible to know if rustiness indeed affected Hurts. He said it didn’t. Other players used the word to describe the offense. Top receiver A.J. Brown didn’t practice much last week because of a nagging knee injury. Smith missed Friday’s workout with back tightness.

Perhaps that’s why neither receiver was as despondent about the passing game as they were last month after a troubling effort against the Panthers. Asked how he thought the offense performed, Brown, who finished with only one catch for 10 yards, said, “I just feel like y’all just want me to say something negative.”

Cameras caught Brown reading the book, Inner Excellence, on the sideline, but he said it’s a tome he has gone to before in-game. He also said the Eagles can win a title playing this way. But it’s hard to envision a scenario in which they reach the Super Bowl without Brown’s usual outer excellence.

“This team is gonna try to find a way to win regardless of the hiccups,” Brown said. “Nothing new. It didn’t surprise me. Of course, we feel like we can play better, but we know who we are. We’ve been on the run game all year and we did that today.”

» READ MORE: A.J. Brown and the lessons from ‘Inner Excellence’ sideline book reading: ‘Clear mind and unburdened heart’

And Barkley (119 yards on 25 carries) did it without Hurts as involved in the run game. There were some zone reads and a few designed runs, but there were no quarterback draws and Hurts’ six carries were his fewest in a completed game this season.

He slid early, but wasn’t as cautious in the second half, which could have had Eagles coaches pulling their hair considering how he got concussed. But with Hurts, it doesn’t always look pretty, as he alluded to last month: “It’s going to look how Jalen Hurts wants it to look, but he’s going to win.”

He’s now won 49 of 69 starts in the NFL and three times in the postseason. He needs three more before he can be labeled “champion.” It’ll take more than the quarterback.

“He’s built for this,” Barkley said of Hurts. “He has highs, he has lows, but he led this team to a Super Bowl, and did a really good job in the Super Bowl. I remember being in New York and watching it and being kind of amazed.

“So we have the talent, we have the quarterback, we have the line, we have the running back, I believe we have the wide receivers, we have the kicker, we have this and that and so on so on.”

Barkley may not have mentioned the defense then, but he lauded it elsewhere. Hurts said he was indebted to Vic Fangio’s unit, particularly rookie Quinyon Mitchell, whose first career NFL interception capped the victory.

“I owe him a shoutout on Instagram,” Hurts said.