The Eagles are headed back to their first Super Bowl since the 2017 season after defeating the 49ers 31–7 in the NFC championship Sunday. Here are five takeaways from what transpired at Lincoln Financial Field …
• The overwhelming story line coming out of this is how the 49ers quarterback situation, which had been managed so well, collapsed under the weight of two injuries—one to Brock Purdy’s throwing elbow and the other to Josh Johnson’s head. Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said in the postgame press conference that he first noticed a brace of some sort on Purdy’s arm right before he reentered the game. He also made the call to play tighter to the line on the Niners defensively to combat their barrage of runs and screens after Johnson exited the game and Purdy reentered after Johnson suffered a concussion. After Ndamukong Suh knocked Johnson to the turf, and his head snapped back before hitting the ground with 12:30 left in the third quarter, San Francisco managed just one first down and 27 yards on 16 offensive snaps. There was, really, just about nothing Kyle Shanahan or anyone else could do without a functional quarterback—Shanahan did say the Niners considered going exclusively to the Wildcat, but scrapped that after the score got out of hand.
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