Eagles-Rams takeaways: The Birds are Super Bowl favorites going into championship Sunday. Should they be?

The Eagles punched their ticket to the NFC championship game for a second time in three seasons, holding off a late charge from the Los Angeles Rams for a 28-22 victory in the snow.

A third and final meeting with the Washington Commanders with a Super Bowl berth on the line looms this weekend, but there’s plenty to unpack from the divisional-round win first.

Here’s what we learned:

The Eagles go into conference championship week as Super Bowl favorites.

Part of those odds (+180 according to FanDuel) will certainly speak to the fact they’re heavily favored at home against the Commanders this Sunday while the Bills and Chiefs’ AFC championship matchup is viewed as more of a toss-up by comparison.

Still, those steadily increasing odds for the Eagles translate to a 35% chance of winning it all. And strangely enough, that feels about right. There are still some lingering questions about this team despite that fact that it’s heading into the final four having lost just once since the end of September, but the Eagles have proven time and again during that stretch that they have mastered the art of not losing games.

It’s evident in the turnover differential, which was plus-two in the Eagles’ favor Sunday despite wintry conditions making for a cold, wet football. In their last 15 games, the Eagles offense has finished turnover-free 11 times and won the turnover battle 14 times. It’s evident in Saquon Barkley’s late-game production, with 96 of his 205 rushing yards coming in the fourth quarter against the Rams. And it’s evident in the way the defense has played in pivotal moments for most of this season, with Jalen Carter potentially saving the team’s season with a red-zone sack in the game’s final minutes.

» READ MORE: Eagles’ Saquon Barkley screaming and sprinting in a winter wonderland and into the history book is a sight to see

All of those things help justify the 35%. But what about the 65%? For as worrying as the Eagles’ passing game has looked for the last few months, it’s fair to point out there haven’t been many avenues to beating the Eagles even without high-level production through the air. Perhaps the weighty quarterback matchup against Jayden Daniels this weekend and the potential one that lies beyond with Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes also still alive can change that. Or, maybe the Eagles defense will make that a moot point, as the group did against teams like the Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals in the regular season.

Acknowledging the potential for turnover or injury variance — or just the general variance that comes from a single-elimination tournament — the balance between the Eagles’ shaky passing game and the dominant defense capable of masking it is the final question on the test. The competition will get harder starting this weekend, but the Eagles have passed nearly every test so far and as a result are understandably the favorites going into the week.

There are typically a couple common threads between the teams that make it this far into the postseason.

Franchise quarterbacks are the obvious one, as are opportunistic defenses or highly rated play-callers. For the Eagles, a multiyear stretch of hitting on premium draft picks stands out as one of the major factors you’ll often see as well.

In the last three years, Eagles general manager Howie Roseman formed a nucleus that now consists of Carter, Cam Jurgens, Quinyon Mitchell, Nolan Smith, Cooper DeJean, and Jordan Davis. The year before that, he took DeVonta Smith, Landon Dickerson, and Milton Williams with successive picks.

» READ MORE: David Murphy: Two reasons the Eagles are a win away from the Super Bowl

I wrote earlier this season that the Eagles defense might be the most cost-effective unit in the NFL. Since then, the group climbed to No. 1 in yards allowed during the regular season and has forced five turnovers in the playoffs.

From the collection of young players vastly outperforming their rookie deals to the low-cost signing of veterans like Zack Baun and Isaiah Rodgers, those numbers come down to Roseman’s team-building the last few years. Especially as the full weight of Jalen Hurts’ contract extension kicks in in the coming years, that low-cost defense will be vital to keeping the team in contention.

In the second half against the Rams, we learned what the Eagles passing game would look like without Hurts’ typical athleticism.

It wasn’t pretty.

» READ MORE: Jeff McLane: Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown, and Kellen Moore need to be better if the Eagles are to beat the Commanders

With the quarterback playing through a knee injury after getting sacked in the third quarter, the patient, sometimes-disjointed passing game looked even more so without Hurts capable of extending plays or evading pressure.

The conditions certainly played a factor, but it’s fair to point out Matthew Stafford passed for 324 yards on 44 attempts. Hurts went 15for20, but managed just 65 net passing yards because of a few costly sacks that killed Eagles drives. According to The Ringer’s Sheil Kapadia, the offense’s net passing total was the fewest any team has managed in the postseason over the last decade, win or loss.

Hurts said he’s confident he’ll play against the Commanders, but which version the Eagles get will almost be just as important as his availability in the first place. Even ignoring his contributions and threat in the run game, the Eagles passing attack has been built around his ability to create out of structure and buy time all year.

Jalen Carter, up: Even though he was mentioned above, Carter’s final numbers deserve special mention. The second-year defensive tackle played 68 of the Eagles’ 70 snaps despite the conditions and finished with five total tackles, two sacks, three quarterback hits, a pass breakup and the game-deciding forced fumble. It was the biggest game of his young career, and he showcased his game-wrecking ability in it.

» READ MORE: Eagles stats: Saquon Barkley and Jalen Carter have monster games despite the elements

Zack Baun, up: Carter deserves the title of “game-wrecker,” but Baun was, at the very least, a drive-wrecker when the Eagles needed him to be. In a five-play stretch with the Rams threatening down just one score, Baun had a pass breakup, a tackle for loss, and a fumble recovery on a Nolan Smith strip-sack to get the ball back to the offense. As he has been most of this season, the All-Pro linebacker was all over the field.