NFC Championship preview: Commanders vs. Eagles breakdown, game prediction

As the Commanders prepare to face the Eagles in Sunday's NFC Championship Game, here's a cool nugget of optimism for each team: The last four times there has been a divisional rematch in a conference title game, the winner has gone on to win the Super Bowl.

The Rams beat the 49ers on the way to a title in 2021, the Seahawks beat the 49ers in 2013, the Packers beat the Bears in 2010, and the Steelers beat the Ravens in 2008. It doesn't matter how their regular-season meetings went — the Rams had been swept, the Steelers had swept, and the Seahawks and Packers had split their first two games, just as the Eagles and Commanders did this season.

Those two games between Philadelphia and Washington were thrillers. In Week 11, the Eagles scored 20 straight points in the fourth quarter, including two Saquon Barkley touchdowns, in a 26-18 win. In Week 18, the Commanders trailed 27-14 in the fourth quarter before rookie QB Jayden Daniels threw three touchdown passes, the last with six seconds left, to rally Washington to a 36-33 win.

With that, here's our deep dive into the last two NFC teams standing, their biggest strengths, question marks and X-factors:

No. 2 seed: Philadelphia Eagles

Biggest strength: You have to start with Barkley and the NFL's No. 2 rushing attack, which has averaged 227 yards per game in the playoffs so far. The eliminated Ravens actually averaged more, but the last team to average more in the playoffs before this season was the 1974 Steelers (231). Add in Jalen Hurts and the Eagles had 184 rushing yards just on touchdowns in their divisional win over the Rams. Philly's ground-and-pound strength goes up against a vulnerability for Washington, but then again, Detroit rushed for 201 yards on 23 carries last